


If You Try Sometimes

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 16:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny Williams, former Newark police detective, has found himself the owner of a gay bar in Waikiki, but in his heart he'll always be a cop. USN Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett came back to islands he called home as a child because of his father’s recent murder, but he stays as the head of Governor Jameson’s elite task force Five-0 out of loyalty to his new team. When a serial killer’s pattern emerges, it brings these two men together and neither expects the impact, personally as well as professionally, when their lives entwine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written, with no small amount of blood, sweat and tears thanks to a suddenly hectic RL, for the [Hawaii Five-0 Big Bang](http://hawaii-bigbang.livejournal.com/). Not that the behind the scenes matter, eh? I do feel like I should start with a, "Bless me Five-0 fandom, for I have sinned. It has been four months since I last posted..." :)
> 
> Everyone should go check out [the fantastic art post](http://archiveofourown.org/works/979278) by [mella68](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mella68/pseuds/mella68). She did a great job, and y'all should tell her so. :)
> 
> ETA: I forgot to thank LdyAnne for the editing and encouragement!

Usually there wasn’t a night of the week the place wasn’t hopping by now. Tonight, though, the crowd was so thin he could see all four walls in the main room and that was not a good sign for former Newark police detective Daniel Williams, owner and proprietor of _The Winking Hole_. He had sent all but one of his bartenders home, not wanting to waste their time or his money. Rex stayed, as his magnificent physique and gorgeous face were both infamous on Waikiki and always drew new folks, locals and tourists alike. No, Danny revised with a scowl, not always. Almost always. He glanced at the clock on his phone, grumbled under his breath and drummed his fingers on the bar top.

Relatively new to the sole bar ownership thing, he knew he’d lucked his way into success through scant skill of his own. Not that he hadn’t learned a thing or two since opening the doors a little under three months ago, but he knew a huge part of his business achievement was sheer, unadulterated happenstance. Right place, right time, wrong sign. 

He’d only wanted a small, unobtrusive but friendly neighborhood bar, enough to scrape by and keep him on this godforsaken collection of rocks. His target market had been cops and firefighters, hardworking and underpaid civil servants. Danny grinned wryly to himself. Oh, he drew in some of his original intended client base – he could usually spot a cop from a mile away. They came, but they didn’t make a show of it. Social progress aside, it was still a bit tricky to come out in certain environments, and Danny never acknowledged the covert cops as anything other than paying customers.

Planned clientele or not, the rate at which the place had taken off had been a pleasant surprise. Considering the sweet monthly lease amount he’d managed to get for the space for the first year, the regularly crowded atmosphere was allowing him some buffer for when the lease would undoubtedly increase next year. He could be preoccupied by the downswing without panicking. He could. He drummed his fingers on the bar some more. Okay, the string of off nights had him a little worried, but he also had a good product (he eyed Rex’s high, tight ass surreptitiously) and confidence that the people would be faithful to that. 

When Danny had first stumbled into ownership of a gay bar, he hadn’t had a clue how to ensure consumer loyalty. The only experience he’d had had been in a place he and several others had co-owned for extra money back in Newark and he’d thought he’d be able to translate running the front of the house to running the whole kit and caboodle. Hah. It became quickly apparent that men tended to think with their dicks and spend with their eyes, though. Once curiosity over the name of the establishment got them through the door, they often returned for the duration of their holiday if they were tourists and repeated business if they were locals, all thanks to the fact he only hired the best. 

He wanted to feel bad for the blatant objectification, but, well. No.

So, he wasn’t an expert but he was pretty sure it was too soon to say two nights in a row of lousy business meant he was going to go down (not like that), but he was a man with many financial obligations. Any bad night seemed doubly so to him. He poured himself a shot of whiskey and slammed it down in one long gulp, also aware he wouldn’t do any good by drinking the second most valuable merchandise himself. 

“Hmmm,” Rex said, eyeing him with a lascivious leer and absolutely no surreptitiousness. The tip of his tongue poked against his perfect, pouty lower lip as he stared at Danny’s mouth. “I’d like to see what you could do with…”

“Rex,” Danny said, cutting the other man off before he could go precisely where they both knew he was headed. Honestly, if he didn’t know the demigod with golden, tan skin and amazing, deep eyes was essentially a professional tease, he’d be flattered. “I don’t pay you to flirt with _me_.” 

“On da house, boss.” Rex grinned, the shameless grin only the breathtakingly beautiful could pull off without looking like total bastards. Or maybe they looked like total bastards but no one cared. “You know half our regulars come in for a glimpse of dat ass of yours, and that light you think you hide under the bushel. The tailoring is getting better, but this is island living, brah. Those pants are still all wrong in so many ways.”

“Rex.” Danny felt the blush working its way up his neck. He didn’t realize he was doing it until it was done, pivoting his hips slightly to block Rex’s roving eyes from his crotch. He shot his employee a wry look. “Even if any of that were remotely true, you are bordering on sexual harassment here. I’d hate to have to fire you.” 

Rex stared at him for a few beats, face still somehow beautiful even as he contorted it to demonstrate his displeasure. Annoying. He shook his head, snatched the glass on the bar top in front of Danny, set it gently in the bin and swiped at the table with a damp towel.

“Hey,” Danny said, “I was just kidding. You’re bank, babe. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Oh, I know that,” Rex said, with an air of cockiness that didn’t match the scowl. “I was more thinking about how I’d like to wring your ex’s neck for whatever he did to make you believe you’re not as fine a specimen as anyone in here, even if you suffer from the terrible luck of being a _haole_. You’re a fun-sized treat.”

Danny shook his head, ignored the fun-sized remark and rubbed the nape of his neck. As much as he wanted to blame Michael for any self-esteem issues he might have – and, okay, cheating on him with a stuffy real estate mogul, declaring said stuffy mogul his one true love and then playing the birth father card to pick Grace up and move to this rock in the middle of the Pacific might, _might_ have put a ding in Danny’s ego – he had always been a bit sensitive to certain things. His height, sure, but now his hairline was wreaking havoc as well. He wouldn’t say he was insecure, but he also couldn’t say he didn’t overcompensate sometimes. And that was all on his own (broad and strong, thanks very much) shoulders, not on Michael’s and not on any of the other failed relationships before that. 

A bar wasn’t the only thing he’d taken ownership of lately.

“Don’t worry about me, Rex. There’s nothing Michael has ever said or done that really hurts me anymore in that regard. I know my strengths.” Danny bobbed his head to the lone man hugging the bar. Goddamn slow nights. “You got another customer. Make him count, yeah?”

“I make them all count, boss.” Rex waggled his eyebrows. “I know _my_ strengths, too.”

He watched Rex begin his schtick for a moment, amused and also grateful. For as big of an attitude his best bartender had sometimes, at his core Rex was a stand-up guy, pretty close to a friend. Danny was careful to maintain a certain amount of distance from his employees, and they didn’t usually hang out off premises or anything, but he’d do anything for them and he liked to think he was the kind of boss who’d instill the same in reverse. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the bar fridge and left Rex to do his job. Just because it was slow didn’t mean he didn’t have things to do himself. 

As he headed back toward his office, Danny did a quick patrol of the main bar area. He exchanged a head bob with Honu at the door, who also favored him with a shrug that implied _win some/lose some_ in reference to the sparse crowd. It didn’t give him much comfort to know that everyone else saw what he was seeing. To him, it meant he was going to have to put his nose to the grindstone to figure out what was going on, and what he could do to get back into the swing of things. 

He poked head into what he always mentally referred to as the _Den of Iniquity_. Back in his own bar-hopping days, the even more dimly lit recesses of clubs and, in some cases, alleyways serving as “outdoor recreation areas”, had never appealed to him all that much. Danny wouldn’t lie and say he’d never been sucked off in a filthy, disgusting alley before, but it hadn’t taken long for him to outgrow that kind of anonymous sex. For the most part. Usually. That was why, since he knew it was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not, he had decided to create the space as he saw fit. Others had laughed at the idea of safety regulations and said it would kill business before it started if word got out there’d be no sucking or fucking without condoms allowed. The opposite had proven to be true. 

Danny was still a cop in everything but title. Just as he enforced a strict alcohol cut-off limit and had a deal with Holo Cabs for patrons who got a bit too shitfaced, he enforced his equally strict condom rule. Hell, he provided copious amounts of them throughout the club though he knew they cost him a bit each month. He could take the financial loss for the peace of mind he gained. There was also comfort in knowing he wasn’t the only one who appreciated that a good time didn’t have to be unsafe, and that condoms didn’t detract from spontaneity. 

He didn’t linger once he’d established that things were running smoothly, uninterested in voyeurism. He really did have a lot to do. He’d thought paperwork in his former profession was bad, but it was nothing like the amount of it, real and virtual, that came with being a small business owner. Danny was excellent at details and he didn’t mind the busy work so much. On nights when he worried at the viability of this venture, always tied in with his own viability to stay close to Gracie and to give her as much as he could in the limited time he had with her, keeping his mind occupied was a good thing. It was as if he thought staring at numbers would give him some genuine insight into something that was dependent on too many factors to boil down to a quick fix like swapping out the Smirnoff for Ketel One or whatever.

He made it all of two more steps on his journey, attention still primarily off to the side, when he ran smack into a solid object. There was a slight give but not softness, definitely not. In the half a second of contact, Danny discerned plenty of toned muscles worthy of a much longer feel. He hadn’t run into anything inanimate, but a person – a well-formed person who let out a dramatic oof and stumbled back a step. Damn it. Danny rued the day he thought up his self-imposed rule about not mixing pleasure with business, because though the guy wasn’t traditionally handsome, he was hotter than shit. Eminently doable. 

Until he opened his mouth.

“Ho, watch where you’re going, little fella.”

Little fella. Really. Okay, Danny was working on the attitude. He sincerely was. It wasn’t one hundred percent fixed yet, though. He balled his fists and looked the guy up and down, as menacingly as possible. There was a time, and not all that long ago, when he would have risen to the bait those words so obviously were intended to be, if the smug, heavy-lidded expression the guy was flashing was anything to go by. He did a mental count of ten, reminded himself that as the boss, he had to lead by example. Starting a brawl was not how he wanted his establishment to be run, especially not because some jackass denigrated his height. 

He stepped aside, swept an arm up to indicate the guy should pass and also tacitly accepting fault for the run-in. The customer was always right, as they said, even when the customers were gigantic jerks. Danny wasn’t in the mood for that kind of altercation anyway. The phone fight he’d had with Michael earlier still lingered as pain at the base of his skull and that one, verbal only, was plenty; he didn’t need to add a physical one to it, though the idea of a release was tempting. He snarled a little when the guy purposely bumped into him again as he passed.

“Fucking Neanderthal,” Danny muttered under his breath, sparing the man a sidelong glare as he turned to his original destination. A hand on his arm pulled him back. He stared down at the hand, large, strong fingers which wrapped all the way around his not-insubstantial bicep, then up at the slightly angered face of its owner.

“What did you say to me?”

In the dimness of the club lights, the man’s eyes still managed to be incredibly alluring. A zing of something basic, primal, shot through Danny at the sharp eyes and the heat of the hand through his dress shirt. For some reason both pissed him off. If circumstances were different he’d … but they weren’t, and he didn’t sleep with his patrons any more than he was close friends with his staff. He knew, then, exactly why he was pissed off. He was _frustrated_ , damn it. He could really use that anonymous sex he didn’t usually do, take the edge off – from the financial worries, the custody bullshit with Michael, having to live here. Just everything. Not for the first time, he wondered what his life might be like if he broke more rules than he followed. He noticed ink poking out from beneath the guy’s tight shirtsleeves, designs that were probably intricate in the broad light of day but were mostly blobs here. He wanted to examine them – there was one on each arm – up close and personal.

“Hey. Hands off, buddy.”

“Not till you tell me what you said.”

Danny blew out a long breath and was going to run his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit, when he realized one hand held a bottle of water and the other was attached to the arm the guy had a lock on. He wrenched himself free, glad when he didn’t meet much resistance. He could hold his own in a fight, of course, but that was what he was trying to avoid. What he should have done was make something nonoffensive up. 

“I said you’re a Neanderthal,” Danny said, enunciating every syllable, staring at the guy pointedly and gaining a modicum of relief in the brutal act of telling it like it was. He’d still rather pull the guy into the fun room and lick into his mouth, but beggars and choosers, as they said. “Try not to let that stop you from having a good time, though, okay? Just don’t plow anyone else unless they say yes first.”

For one fleeting moment, there was a look of pure astonishment on the guy’s face, the same kind of look Danny got whenever he said something with a blunt honesty most people didn’t expect. The surprise then quickly morphed into delight. Jesus, the asshole was gorgeous no matter what expression decorated his mug. Danny’s mouth went dry as he watched the man grin, somehow both sincere and the worst front he’d ever seen at the same time. He narrowed his eyes, assessing as he always did, but the guy suddenly flapped a hand at him, pivoted and walked away. His gait was stiff, controlled, and out of place in a man on the prowl for cock. Any alarm bells he got from that were put on snooze as he noted the incredible view of the guy’s ass and his brain automatically went into a scene bending him over (or being bent over, he was okay with either) and…

Danny unscrewed the water bottle and took a long drink as he tried to beat his healthy imagination into submission. Beat. Submission. Both words simply fostered more images in his mind. He had a collection of ties at home that would look great around that jerk’s wrists, restrained nice and tight to his bedframe. Danny wasn’t even into that kind of thing all that often, but he made exceptions. He might like to show that guy exactly who was boss. Jesus, he was not helping himself at all. The eye candy finally moved out of his line of sight and he breathed a sigh, of relief and maybe a little disappointment. He was really going to have to take that damned edge off soon, and with more than his right hand. With a real person, someone nice and kind and uncomplicated.

He finally made it to his office. Faced with the piles of paper on his desk, reason and professionalism soon righted themselves. The more Danny looked at the pluses and minuses of his business venture, the more his libido went back to where it was housed more often than not these days: the proverbial back burner. As he sifted through the monotonous work of reconciling accounts, though, a pattern started to present itself. At first he thought that he had some subconscious need to prove it was some outside force causing the drop in business, but the numbers didn’t lie. 

His latent detective brain kicked in. He’d moved on to a new career due to circumstances, not choice. He couldn’t seem to turn that part of himself off, and found that he didn’t really want to. Soon Danny was sifting through the online newspaper archives instead of doing bookkeeping, reconciling the cyclical downswing of business in his club with current events and wishing like hell he had access to police databases.

H50H50

Life in the Reserves and back on the islands where he’d grown up wasn’t an easy thing for him, and more often than not he still felt shaky on solid ground. To put it plainly, Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett couldn’t seem to get his land legs, and a big part of it was due to _why_ he’d come home. He thought about his father with bittersweet sorrow, for the way they’d never been able to bridge their differences. Now it was too late.

Truthfully, he had lingering doubts that he’d made the right call about staying, especially after he’d shot and presumably killed the man responsible for his father’s too recent death. The thing was, though, Victor Hesse’s body had never been recovered. The vengeance felt hollow. He had no way of knowing if Hesse was actually dead but he’d been locked into an agreement with the governor by that point anyway. He’d taken Jameson’s offer to run the task force she’d intended his father to head on total impulse, he could admit that, but at the time it made sense. The moment he’d run into that idiot detective in his dad’s – his now – garage, he’d known there was no way in hell he could leave that guy in charge of the investigation. Steve had already known who was responsible, but Detective Kaleo seemed just the type to fuck it up so much the evidence would start telling the complete opposite story. He’d learned long ago to listen to his gut, and his gut had not trusted Kaleo one little bit. 

Why he continued to stay when logic told him he needed to hunt down Hesse’s damned corpse himself went deeper than a work commitment he knew he could have negotiated out of easily. 

Two big reasons stood side-by-side at the tech table right now. Steve watched Chin Ho Kelly and his young cousin Kono Kalakaua exchange a few words. He smiled at the way they already worked so well together, and he was as close to happy as he’d come in a long time. His father had always spoken highly of Chin and Steve got why now – Chin was a fine cop who’d fallen victim to some awful circumstances. Steve didn’t believe for a minute the seasoned cop was guilty of any of the corruption he was accused of. He was glad to have run into Chin early in his time back on the island, and to have brought the shunned man onto the task force, given him another chance to do the job he loved. 

His dad would have approved of the decision, even if he wouldn’t have ever broadened that approval to other aspects of Steve. No matter how strained his own relationship had been with John McGarrett, how nebulous his father’s affection or disapproval, Steve knew John had thought the world of Chin. He also knew if he returned to active duty now, Chin would be back playing tourist shop cop in a heartbeat. Whatever personal ghosts that had been resurrected in his coming back to the islands, Steve could deal with them on his own. He wasn’t going to run away and leave Chin to languish in the same kind of hell in which he’d been existing.

As for Kono, without Chin and him, she’d have to fend for herself at the Honolulu Police Department, with an inherited black mark over her head, tainted by her relation to Chin. While there was a strong belief that cops looked out for one another without question, Steve knew that wasn’t one hundred percent across the board, and not just because of Chin. He had no doubt in his mind that Kono would be able to handle whatever life threw at her, but that didn’t mean he wanted to claim responsibility for forcing her to in this instance. She had too much raw talent for police work and, if his eye was as good as he thought, skill enough to be a sharpshooter to have to fight tooth and nail for respect.

So, no. He wasn’t going anywhere just yet. He thought he’d done enough running in his lifetime, though he felt like he was waiting for a yet undiscovered indefinable and real _something_ to tell him it was the right decision to stay. 

He wondered sometimes, what would have been if he hadn’t taken his father’s exile all those years ago and absorbed into one of his own making. The reasons he and his sister Mary had both been shipped off to the mainland all those years ago were complex. As an adult, he now understood that a little better than he had when he was barely sixteen, lost and confused and hurt by more than just his mother’s untimely death from ovarian cancer. The need to protect from the unknown has been for both of them as far as Dad was concerned, but Steve was sure with him there was another layer of complexity. It was a layer that he’d built upon until he was a human variety of sedimentary rock. So far, he’d kept himself from splintering into sharp but fragile pieces.

“We’ve found more that fit the MO,” Chin said as Steve entered the bullpen. His face was hard lines and planes, frustration making him look grimmer than usual. “They’re from all over the island, and go back almost eleven months. John Does, for the most part, and none of them met any missing persons reports descriptions then or since.”

“Damn it.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, an odd feeling it was too long still striking him as he did so. He was relaxing into mostly-civilian life, perhaps. “You’re sure?”

This case, though, was chipping away at those layers and he wasn’t ready for the base of this long-buried thing to be exposed. He wanted to be granite, but he was sandstone. It was a part of himself he barely acknowledged, had years of hiding under his belt, because of Dad and then because of broader, institutional military policies still in force. The problem was that Steve was the _only_ one of the three of them who could do undercover work for this case. Kono was the wrong gender and Chin hadn’t been out of police work long enough that he wouldn’t be recognized. He just wasn’t sure how much it was ultimately going to cost him, personally. He tried to add another layer, as he remembered the thrill of being the clubs these past few nights and not having to hide, all under the guise of, well, hiding, in the line of duty. Somehow, standing there in a too-tight white T-shirt and snug jeans, a uniform of sorts, he felt naked.

“All of them were found like the others, boss,” Kono said, her eyes dark and liquid with rookie emotion – sadness, anger, need for justice unchecked and unguarded. That wouldn’t last long. Soon she’d know how to shield herself from the worst of it.

He wasn’t planning to tell either member of his new team that a few nights ago he’d gone out after his recent foray into Honolulu’s gay club scene, wound up from the throng of hot bodies, pounding music and latent tendencies he didn’t want but also wanted so damned much it hurt, looking for something on a much more personal level. Peace from his own demons, or a release from them, in a less hyped atmosphere. Steve almost smiled. The name of the place and its sheer ridiculousness had pulled him in, but what he’d found hadn’t given him what he needed. He was starting to believe nothing ever would. 

He pictured an angry face with icy, light eyes staring at him, broad shoulders, remembered the acerbic tone and the immediate surge of desire that had shot through him. Then again. 

“Naked from the waist down, violated with a foreign object, beaten brutally with blunt force trauma to the head and dumped.” Kono’s voice was thick. “Chances are good every last one of them was on the fringe in some way, if no one reported them missing.”

In hindsight, the signature was remarkably obvious, but Steve couldn’t help continuing to wonder why HPD hadn’t picked up on it sooner anyway. The fact that none of the victims had anything in common, physically, shouldn’t have mattered. These men didn’t deserve what happened to them, and they didn’t deserve to be overlooked. 

“That makes how many total?” Steve scowled at the screen. “Shit. Twelve.”

“So far.” Chin frowned. “There wasn’t much of a discernable pattern when this all started and I’d be willing to bet most of the first victims were homeless. We could be looking at more as I refine the parameters of my search, but so far, the only commonalities of the more recent victims are that they’re all men in their late twenties to late thirties. There’s no good way to know if the first vics were gay or bi, of course, but the last few definitely have been and weren’t nameless or faceless in the community.”

“Makes you wonder what changed,” Kono said, thoughtful and quiet. She glanced at Steve, as if he could assure her of something. “What would make someone go from targeting men who, for all intents and purposes, were invisible to those more likely to be noticed?”

Steve was a man of action. He wasn’t well versed in police procedure or how any civilian body would proceed yet, he only knew how he felt. He was less concerned about the whys and more concerned with how to stop it before another man lost his life in a brutal, humiliating way. Whatever the pattern, whatever the motivation, this monster was escalating both in his timeframe and his victims. Three in the last few months alone, including one late last week, the one that landed the case with Five-0. His stomach clenched, and the layers crumbled just that little bit more.

“It might help to get inside this guy’s head,” Steve said with a quick bob of his own head. He didn’t relish the thought. He was no profiler, but there seemed to be a lot of rage in their killer. Rage might be simple homophobia, but then again…didn’t he know better than anyone how internalized emotions could build and warp? “For all we know, he’s escalating the cycle because he wants to get caught. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

“Mmm,” Chin said, nodding. “Something obviously triggered him. Not only is his timeline increasing, but the post-mortem damage he’s inflicting on the victims’ bodies has become more extensive and vicious.”

“He’s getting angrier and that could be to our advantage. He could slip up soon,” Kono said. “Leave us some trace.”

The problem with that was it required waiting for someone else to lose his life, and Steve was not willing to sit tight for a DNA windfall that might never come. So far, his time undercover had yielded nothing case specific, but he had gotten an up close and personal view on what these murders were doing to the community. Dollars to doughnuts, if they interviewed club owners, they’d find out there’d been a marked decrease in revenue each time a body was discovered. Both clubs he’d hit, on and off duty, had been relatively quiet. The police or media might not have noticed something happening, but those intimately affected sure did, and they hadn’t felt safe enough to come forward. 

“I don’t want to wait for this guy to screw up,” Steve said, perhaps a bit too sharply judging from the way Kono snapped her head up. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Sorry, long day. Long week. The point is, we might never know what made him up his game, but if we’re out there maybe we’ll see something, hear something. Put a stop to it before he gets to someone else.”

“How long can you go all day and almost all night?” Kono worried at her lower lip.

“As long as it takes, Kono.”

“Maybe we should ask HPD if they can…”

“Police presence will only spook him. Steve hasn’t raised any red flags yet and he’s right. We may never know what set our killer off on a personal level, but…” Chin frowned as he trailed off. He began calling things up on the tech table, clearly on a focused train of thought. After a moment or two, he shot a few things up to the monitors and pointed. “There. I thought I remembered something.”

Steve squinted at the images, then drew his lips into a thin line. Oh, hell. He felt the figurative splinter starting. He pinched the bridge of his nose to help him keep it together.

“He’s been more active in the last two and a half months, which is just about the time a new club in Waikiki opened its doors.”

“ _The Winking Hole_ , for real? What is that, sounds like some kind of euph…” 

Chin cleared his throat and shook his head. 

“Uh,” Kono said with a blush. “Sorry, not important. A little weird, but not important. We haven’t surveilled that one yet. Do you think there’s a connection between that club opening and the increased killing?”

“I think it’s a stretch,” Steve said, throat dry as he recalled one certain angry, diminutive but wholly capable-looking man he’d encountered. The one he did not get a serial killer vibe off of, so much as a vibe-vibe. “We have no sound reason to think there’s a correlation. Tomorrow we’ll interview the most recent victims’ families and friends again, see if the men had been there lately.”

“And tonight you can go check out the place, Steve,” Chin said. “Same set up as before, with either Kono or I monitoring outside. At least one of us will catch a break and get a full night’s sleep.”

An all too familiar thin spiral of fear coiled through him. Steve’s hands were damp and cold, he almost felt fifteen again, torn between denial and the need to let it all out. Back then, he’d denied and it hadn’t mattered; he’d still been met with reproval. He and Dad never talked about it openly, but from that point to the time he’d been sent to the mainland, the tension had been palpable. At thirty-four, he should be more able to handle the thought of rejection. In some ways, though, it felt worse now. He’d lived a lifetime of not being who he was. People liked and respected him when he wasn’t who he was. Exposing that part of himself he’d carefully buried wasn’t easy. He wasn’t ready for it. 

Chin and Kono were basically the only bright spots in his life at the moment. He didn’t want to lose them the way he lost Dad.

“Ah, I think you guys…” That was as far as Steve got before his throat went drier, as dry as the fucking Mojave. He worked through several painful swallows. He wasn’t fifteen, damn it, and these two people weren’t his father. “I think you should know something.”

“Steve?” Chin’s dark eyes, as calm as ever, somehow also looked condemning. “What is it?”

“I’ve been there. I went there a few nights ago,” Steve said, so fast his words ran together. “After we wrapped up.” 

For a few seconds, there was that dreaded dead silence filled with judgment. Steve had to fight from taking a step back, as if the tension existed in a small box and if he just removed himself from it everything would be okay. By some miracle, he stood his ground. He ran his palms down the front of his jeans, though, and he was sure his pounding heart was audible in the room.

“Without back-up? You’d ream me for that,” Kono said slowly. 

That was his out, he realized, and in his panic it hadn’t occurred to him. Steve managed to bob his head sheepishly, and rubbed the back of his neck. He gave Kono a half smile, but when he turned it on Chin he faltered at the other man’s steady, assessing gaze. Chin gave him a barely perceptible head tilt, which he wasn’t sure how to interpret. He looked away quickly. 

“It was stupid, I know. I just thought you guys should know, in case I run into anyone who might recognize me tonight,” Steve said. “You might have thought it strange.”

Coward. He was a fucking coward and he _hated_ it. He hated that layer of himself almost more than anything else.

“Should we scratch it off our list?” Chin asked. “What did you find out?”

“No. I didn’t stay long since it was almost closing time. And I, ah, I knew almost right away it was a bad move.” Liar. He was too good at lying, to everyone and himself most of all. “From what I could tell, it was different, though. The atmosphere, I mean. Very quiet, but it seemed partly intentional, not just a slow night.”

“Maybe it’s not a very good club,” Kono said. 

“Maybe,” Steve said, except he didn’t believe that. He couldn’t believe that, not knowing that something about the place made him want to go back. The bar had lent a certain air of safety, made him feel as comfortable as was possible. It was that, not anyone he might have run into there. “There was a clear alcohol restriction policy posted and, uh, how should I put it? Best practices for sex acts.”

“How responsible,” Chin said. He looked thoughtful, though. “Doesn’t sound triggering, but for all we know there’s something about that kind of quiet acceptance that makes the lifestyle seem more accessible. More quote unquote normal. To most, that would be a reassurance, but this guy, he’s angry. I’ve been thinking maybe he’s gay himself and doesn’t want to accept it. Maybe he was raised to believe homosexuality is evil. A club that puts it all out in the open instead of catering to the camp side or the dark, illicit side could bother someone like that.”

Steve swallowed back an argument about how it wasn’t so easy to put it into little categories like that. He swore he could feel Chin’s attention on him. He nodded, the barebones profile perhaps too close to describing _him_ for him to add to it. 

“You up for another visit?”

With someone out there, listening, Steve wouldn’t do anything that would split off any more layers. He was almost certain of that, and he was almost certain he did not want that person out there being eyes and ears with him to be Chin. Except he didn’t want it to be Kono either. He didn’t want it to be anyone, and that was a problem.

“You stick here, find out what you can about the club and the owner,” Steve said. “Send us the intel, then go home and get some rest. Something has to break soon so we won’t have to sleep in shifts. But for now, we’ll scope the place out, see where it takes us. Plan?”

“Plan.” 

Chin looked for a moment like he wanted to say something more, but instead cleared the tech table and locked it down. He headed for his office to do his work as Kono grabbed her gear and walked with Steve toward the main entrance to their headquarters. 

For the life of him, Steve could not tell if Chin’s gaze following him all the way out of the door was real or imagined, supportive or judgmental, and he had no idea if he felt more like he was marching to his downfall or his salvation.

H50H50

“This is _just_ like you, Danny,” Michael said, his tone scathing.

There’d been a time he would have wanted the lines of communication between him and his former partner to be open, ironically as recently as when Michael was already fucking Stan and Danny was the biggest chump in the tri-state area for not knowing it. Now, as much as he hated the “have my lawyer talk to your lawyer” method of communication in general, he’d be happy to never have to see Michael’s cheating face ever again.

And if part of that was because he still, somewhere deep down, loved that damn face and the perfect family he’d once had, well, he wasn’t particularly proud of himself for it. Glancing at Gracie’s sweet, sleeping face, though, he also couldn’t fault himself for wanting that kind of life again. Fragments of his heart might as well have splintered right off when Grace made a snuffling noise and burrowed her nose into his neck. The very last thing he wanted to do was hand her over right now. He tightened his hold.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself become wrapped up in the idea of a what if, not after he’d spent months rebuilding himself figuratively while he’d been building the _Hole_ literally. That instant chemistry he’d had with Michael still existed, but the rational part of his brain knew it wasn’t love. Fireworks were meant to be fleeting, a brief burst of color and light, magic that quickly faded. Their passion too often ended in hate rather than love and he finally recognized it, though he had to remind himself time and time again. He needed more. He deserved to not be made to feel like an asshole for being who he was.

“ _This_ is out of my control, Michael,” Danny said as calmly and quietly as he could. It wasn’t easy. Volatile was a word often used to describe his personality, never more so than when he was being maligned for no due cause. “You know that. I can’t plan for someone else’s illness. The business is too new for me to be hands-off.”

“My point is that there’s always something with you, Danny.” 

Michael was throwing his best wounded bird expression now, as if he was the long-suffering victim and Danny the aggressor. It was a tactic that would normally bait Danny like nobody’s business, but he refused to get angry in front of his girl, sleeping or not. There were some lines that were not to be crossed; he knew that if Michael either didn’t seem to or didn’t care.

“Something that is out of your control. It’s never just you, failing to come through. Case in point, your sleaze bar being more important than Grace.”

Jesus. Danny couldn’t win. They’d been happy once, but standing on the doorstep of Michael and Stan’s palatial home, it felt like twenty lifetimes ago. Michael, as it turned out, hadn’t had the stomach to be with a cop and Danny understood that. He truly did. As the son of a first responder himself, the fear and nagging anxiety he’d grow up watching his mother live with was something that had struck him and he’d felt it too once he’d gotten old enough to understand it. But he’d also felt the pull to help others, and he was … had been _good_ at it. He refused to let Michael make him feel bad about that. 

Now, in a far less dangerous profession, he still wasn’t good enough.

This was the final nail in the coffin of his fantasy of regaining his perfect life. It had to be. Danny couldn’t keep on kidding himself, because as it turned out his memory was faulty; there hadn’t been perfection so much as dysfunction and misery.

“Michael, stop right there. You know there is nothing on this planet more important to me than Grace. Disrespect anything else about me to make yourself feel like the bigger man in this situation, I don’t care,” Danny said, “but don’t, do not ever disrespect the devotion I have to this little girl.”

Danny winced when said little girl muttered and moved restlessly now, venturing closer toward waking. He cupped a hand at the back of Grace’s head and nudged into her hair with his nose. She was sweet and perfect and everything.

“We’re not having this … discussion here. Anyway, I’d think you’d be happy. After all, isn’t it your whole goal to keep me from my daughter as much as you can?”

Something like hurt flashed through Michael’s dark eyes, but Danny couldn’t trust it. He had little reason to trust the man he thought had been The (fabled, as it turned out) One these days. He regretted many, many things about his relationship with Michael, but the biggest was caving in when it had come to who would be the biological father of their child. Michael had said that being bi gave Danny more opportunities to one day have his own child – a monumental hint about their demise he hadn’t even picked up on, idiot that he was. And Danny also hadn’t anticipated how that would be used against him, how he now had what little time he had with Grace based primarily on Michael’s disingenuous good will. The law was not on his side and both of them knew it.

“Danny.”

“Let me take her to her room?” The question was begrudging. Danny had to ask permission to tuck his own daughter into the enormous, fluffy bed Stan had bought her. “Please.”

“Make it quick,” Michael said, stepping aside to let Danny through. He ruffled his long fingers through Grace’s tousled hair once as Danny moved across the threshold. “It’s late.”

As Danny passed, he smelled Stan’s cologne all over Michael. To this day, he had no idea how he’d missed that detail, pre-divorce, because it had to have been there. Denial, most likely. He’d been like an ostrich with its head in the sand for far too long back then. Hell, not just back then. Now. His stomach turned over a few times. This was his life now, and for one random moment he had no idea how that was possible. He’d lived his adult life as an upstanding person, had committed no crime but was now serving a life sentence. He frowned. Rex was right about him, he was damaged goods and until he was able to complete the rebuild by shoring up the cracked walls, he’d never truly move on. 

He needed something to move on to.

Danny ascended the stairs with Gracie still wrapped around him like an octopus. She stirred a bit as he awkwardly pulled her sheets aside and lay her on the mattress. He set her overnight bag on the floor next to the bed, pulled the sheets over her small frame in one motion, and wasn’t surprised when she shifted. He watched her briefly, the light in the room diffuse from the hallway, as she turned her head his way and opened her eyes.

“Danno.”

“Go back to sleep, sweet pea.” Danny leaned and planted a kiss on her forehead, then rubbed his nose against hers. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Mmkay,” she said sleepily. Her little hand patted him awkwardly on the cheek. “Love ya.”

“Not as much as I love you,” Danny whispered.

Genetically speaking, Grace might not be his. In every sense that mattered the most, she was. His heart was hers, wholly and completely. Danny hated that she’d wake up in the morning here instead of at his place and not remember why. He mentally cursed Rex for no-showing tonight as he tiptoed out of the room and snicked the door shut behind him. He was almost as irritated with his employee as he was with his ex, who had vanished from the foyer. Danny knew that had to be by design. Seeing that he had no desire to continue down the argument path at the moment, he simply let himself out and headed to work. He tried to shake off the bad feelings his run-in with Michael produced, not wanting to bring that energy to the bar.

He found the _Hole_ moderately busier than it had been in a while, which jived with the pattern he was almost one hundred percent certain he’d uncovered. Danny frowned. If he was also right about that pattern amping up, it wouldn’t be long before another man was found dead and the whole cycle would start again. He needed to make sure he was right before he contacted HPD, who might not believe him anyway. They’d probably dismiss him as a former cop looking to brownnose his way into a job they’d already told him didn’t exist. He forced those thoughts out of his head. For the next several hours, his priority was the business, not the sidelining freelance (unpaid) detective work.

He and Honu exchanged their customary head bobs as he entered through the front door rather than the employee entrance in the back. Something about a dark alley was even less appealing than usual, now that he was sure there was some sicko out there hunting gay men. He wondered if that was why his place had boomed so quickly, at least during the non-post-murder weeks; it was the safest place he could think of. Danny noted Andy and Keoki looked like they were handling the bar okay, but he wanted to check with them before he did anything else. Without Rex acting as his assistant manager – the guy was a bit over the top, but he knew his stuff and Danny knew he could count on him to cover the nights he had Grace – certain procedures might have slipped with the absence of anyone in charge. With a potential serial out there, safety was even more important. He wanted that enforced and known, so the members of the community didn’t feel like they had to stop living for a time.

Danny did a visual circuit of the main bar area. It took him all of three seconds to ID the guy at the far end of the bar, tucked away with a vantage point of the whole place. It was where he would have gone, if he were … his hackles raised. So did something else, because the man was as well put together as ever, but damn it, no. Not going there, and he was pissed that he had to check himself already. He recognized the broad shoulders and, yup, the hint of ink on both biceps showed as the man twisted slightly in his seat to survey the room much the same way Danny was doing. The stiffness of the man’s shoulders the last time their paths crossed made sense now. He was irritated about his failure to notice that the first time, but then he’d been thinking largely with his dick. 

He strode over, as yet unnoticed himself, and straddled the empty stool next to his target. Danny grabbed the man’s wrist firmly, held on as its owner attempted to wrest free.

“Hi,” he said, leaning close so he could be heard. Danny watched closely as several things flitted across a face he had remembered as being inexplicably and ridiculously hot – surprise, pleasure, alarm … that wild-eyed look of a man cornered. Bingo. “You’re in the wrong place.”

“It’s a free country,” the guy said, his features back to blank. The transition was quick, but also too slow not to go unnoticed. He tipped his glass back, exposing his neck, a move that garnered attention from several of the men at the bar, including both bartenders. He pinned his eyes on Danny. “You have no right to tell me I can’t be here.”

“I didn’t actually say you couldn’t be here, but regardless – you bet your sweet ass I do have the right.” Giving a healthy squeeze first, Danny then released his hold on the guy and slid off his seat. “Come with me, please. Now.”

For several seconds, the guy didn’t move. He tilted his head ever so slightly to the left, a tell an experienced cop would never give. This guy was either new, or maybe not used to this particular kind of undercover work. Danny hated that his radar was apparently broken, if he hadn’t connected the dots the first time he’d seen the other man. An uncomfortable straight guy in gay clothing. Sheesh. Worse, if this plant was back, that likely meant HPD or maybe the Bureau thought whatever was happening to queer men in this damnable city had something to do with _him_ or at least someone here. His night was just getting better and better.

“You work here?”

“Yep, I sure do,” Danny said loudly. “Now are you coming, or are we going to have a problem?”

“What if I said problem?” the guy asked, standing. He crossed his nice, toned arms over his nice, toned chest and drew himself to his full height. 

Danny smiled. He simply adored it when people thought he’d cow under size intimidation. He raised an eyebrow and tipped his head to the side, appraising the man. There appeared no obvious place for a wire, but there was no way they’d send someone in without some kind of back-up. He raised his right hand and beckoned the guy closer. Fuck his libido, why hadn’t it shut down now that he knew he was dealing with a fake? Fuck, fuck, fuck it, his intuition couldn’t be this far off. He wanted to climb this guy like he was a palm tree. The man blinked, but actually followed his gesture. Up close, Danny smelled a slight tang of salt coupled with something fresher. The beach after a rain. In the miasma of booze and sweat, it was a haven.

It was also not something he needed to be romanticizing.

“You’re a cop,” Danny said into the man’s ear, which was as nicely-shaped as the rest of him, damn it. “I doubt you’re here on your own. Is your _dick_ wired for sound? That’s the only place I can figure it could be. Should I just go ahead and…?”

He bent slightly, not that far, really, due to the annoying height difference that didn’t matter because this man was not on the menu.

“Shit! Okay, okay, don’t do…” the guy’s voice choked off. He skittered back until his elbow slammed onto the bar top. He winced. “Don’t do that.”

Ah, what he thought as the first genuine reaction he’d seen from the guy was complete with redness at the tips of his ears, visible in the low light. Danny couldn’t help it. Even if the guy was off limits, he found the whole embarrassed and bashful thing incredibly amusing. Also, attractive in a weird sort of way.

“Follow me,” Danny said.

“Shut up, Kono, I got made,” the guy grumbled quietly, clearly not speaking to him. “It isn’t funny.”

Danny smiled grimly. Kono, he noted, must be the back-up. The more he watched this guy, the more he revised his assessment. He wasn’t sure his mystery man was a cop, exactly. Someone on that side of the fence, absolutely, but he had a different sort of hard edge. He flicked his attention to the short hair just trying to grow longer than a few centimeters in length. The tats, the stiff shoulders. Hell, he was probably military. 

“Hey, you said you work here, but who are you?” 

Those piercing eyes were on Danny. Fuck, what was wrong with him? Straight guy, and based on the overreaction at the very thought of another man’s face in the vicinity of his dick, one who might harbor some deep seated hate of his own. Great. Danny was always attracted to the wrong sort.

“Danny Williams. Owner of this fine establishment.” Danny turned, but tossed back an, “I’m sure by the time we get to my office, you’ll have enough intel on me to hold a grown-up conversation.”

He caught Keoki’s attention with a hand wave signaling where he was going. Keoki grinned back and made a lewd gesture. Danny chose not to respond beyond rolling his eyes. In his head, he heard Michael’s derisive comments about his sleazy bar. Michael liked to selectively forget they’d met in a much seedier place than the _Hole_ ever would be. Andy jabbed Keoki in the ribs with his elbow and shot Danny a _shaka_. Assured the floor was being handled, he weaved through the crowd. The pulse of the music and the corresponding bodies moving in time with it made him feel slightly dizzy. Or it was the hot guy trailing behind him.

Cop, cop, straight undercover cop, he reminded himself as he led the way toward his office, and people are dying out there. He had to maintain a line on the priorities. Standing at the door, he ushered his guest into the small room. Danny barely had the door shut when the guy was all up in his space.

“What did you mean about me being in the wrong place?” 

This one was a walking contradiction, Danny thought. Uncomfortable with him getting close, yet his mystery cop was the one pushing across personal boundaries now. Damn if those eyes weren’t all sorts of spectacular in the brighter light. The feeling that he needed control and he needed it now overwhelmed every other thing racing through him. If the guy was military…

“Step back,” Danny barked. 

As he’d suspected would happen, the man pulled himself up and away in what looked like a reflex action more than anything, a response to the tone of Danny’s voice. As messed up as it was, Danny almost felt guilty for using that tactic.

“You know, it’s polite for people to exchange names before engaging in business.” Danny slid around the guy and took a stance on his side of the desk. He adjusted his voice into his fallback of sarcastic. “It separates us from the animals, keeps us from going all jackal and hyena on each other.” 

“Jackal…”

“ _Animal Planet,_ whatever. Also, not the point. You know who I am, and chances are you now know that I was a cop in my not-too-distant past, which is how I made you so easily. Now who are you?”

The guy twitched, his expression a familiar one. Huh. Danny thought maybe the alarmed retreat out by the bar hadn’t been the first glimpse of the real person he’d seen. This was the dumbfounded yet delighted look he’d gotten the other night. One of the many things that had had him jacking off several times since. Now he wondered if maybe his proverbial radar wasn’t totally broken.

“Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, Five-0. Governor’s task force.” He stood on the other side of the desk from Danny, almost at attention. “You’ll have to take my word. I don’t have ID on me.”

“Of course you don’t,” Danny said. He let his eyes roam across that skintight white T-shirt, the hint of chest hair peeking out of the V neckline, and down the snug jeans. “Where would you put it?” 

There wasn’t one bat of one single long eyelash at that, no ticks or tells or any emotion at all, good or bad, on Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett’s face. 

“You need to tell me what you meant now, Mr. Williams.”

Danny didn’t know this man. He had no basis for snap judgments, really, but he could say without hesitation that he didn’t like this no-nonsense version of him that had presumably taken over while they were walking through the club. It was as if any and all personality had been drained out of him once the gay-guy-on-the-prowl act was no longer needed. It felt extreme. Wrong. The man had been something of a jackass before, but in a lighter way, the push/pull kind of way that Danny tended to enjoy in a person. He liked to egg people on and be egged in return. As far as turn-ons went, he didn’t think it was that bizarre. Who didn’t enjoy someone that challenged them? The man now standing before him seemed more robot than human. 

“Sure.” If that was how they were going to play it, Danny had no problem being a raging asshole himself. He’d been attempting self-improvement for months, but after first being dragged down to work and then dealing with Michael because of it, he could use this as a venting mechanism. If he couldn’t expect a sexual outlet anytime soon, he’d take the anger. He was only human. He spread his hands out in front of him. “So, like I said, by now you know I was a police officer in the great state of New Jersey, before I ended up on this miserable rock. You probably know that my solve rate was nothing short of remarkable. Steve … do you mind if I call you Steve?”

As he’d spoken, Steve’s jaw had begun clenching and unclenching. Good. A slight narrowing of eyes and a nod of the head were his answer.

“So, Steve, you can imagine that I, as a decorated and accomplished former cop, might notice something was going on around here. Oh, yeah. I connected dots. You want to know what I didn’t notice, though? I didn’t notice the horrific murders of twelve – it is twelve, yeah? – men in the exact same manner making any kind of splash in the media or with the HPD. Or, they hadn’t. I guess that’s changed, if the governor’s very own elite task force is on the job now.”

“Yes, we are,” Steve said when Danny paused to take a breath. “If you’d kindly get to your point?”

Danny grinned and didn’t mean it.

“How polite. Very good, thank you. Since you asked so nicely, my point is this: if I have it right, and I think I do, none of the first victims were likely to be heavy in the club scene. I’m guessing my fine bar wasn’t the first on your list, so you or someone like you has been out there casing all of the gay bars. See any street people out there? No. In my experience, if they have cash and want booze, they want bang for their buck, if you know what I mean. Wherever this guy’s finding his victims, it’s not here, or _Hula’s Bar and Lei Stand_ down the road, or any place that’s explicitly or subtly gay. Maybe it’s changed, I dunno, it probably has. But I do know if you can find the thread of commonality with the first victims – besides being nameless and unwanted and lost, I mean – you’ll have better luck catching this SOB.”

Releasing all of that felt great, actually. As he’d put piece after piece of the puzzle together, he hadn’t had anyone to bounce his suppositions and theories off of, which had always been an integral part of his job and one he loved. The silent stare, on the other hand, felt uncomfortable and he knew what was coming – a dismissal. He’d had enough of that in his life to know the warning signs. Danny wasn’t a cop anymore. He didn’t know what he was thinking, pretending to be again. He sat, the energy draining right out of him. He glanced at his hands, conscious of Steve’s attention on him and the muffled thrum of music coming through the door. He glanced up at last, ready to wish Steve luck on the case, but he froze at the look on the guy’s face.

“You should work with muh … us,” Steve said, eyes bright with something Danny hadn’t seen from him before. 

It was difficult to tell which of them was more surprised by those words.

H50H50

He had a nervous pit in his stomach and it was only getting worse with each passing minute. He’d made a mistake. A very big, very stupid mistake he had no idea how to correct. Since Kono had witnessed it, he couldn’t simply take it back. No matter how much he wanted to pick up the phone and make it go away, he couldn’t think of one way to make it happen. He was trapped and it was his own fault.

Steve stared at the neat, methodically written notes he’d requisitioned last night and cursed himself for being such an idiot. The notes were thorough and demonstrated clearly the keen intelligence of the person responsible for them, and he was impressed every time he looked through them. But it was a lead, nothing more than that, nothing more than they would have come up with on their own soon enough. He, Chin and Kono could have easily handled it. They would have, except he’d opened his stupid mouth meaning to thank the man for his diligence as a civilian and be on his merry way, and instead had invited Dan … Williams to consult with him to hunt this serial killer down. The man who’d, before Steve had known anything about him except for his sharp eyes, sharper tongue and a broad set of shoulders, gotten to him in a way he hadn’t expected.

He still couldn’t believe he’d done it. Maybe that was why he couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

Worse, now that he knew more, so much more thanks to Chin’s research, Steve also knew he’d been right before he’d walked into _The Winking Hole_ again last night – every last protective layer he’d accumulated was about to be split off. His eyes went blurry on the words written with a strong hand, after staring at the notes for too long. Williams was intelligent and surprisingly analytical. Steve bet he was great at everything he set his mind to. He felt another layer bite the dust.

“You okay, Steve?” Chin asked.

Steve blinked a few times and shifted his gaze to Chin, who stood at the door wearing an expression of cautious concern. Coward that he was, he’d successfully avoided major interaction with Chin all morning. He didn’t think he was ready for the look in the other man’s eye even now, but he couldn’t run forever. That much was becoming the recurring theme in his life; every path he took had to end somewhere. To his own chagrin and shame, he saw exactly what he’d expected in Chin and it turned out he had been right to steer clear of the other man and his dark, evaluating eyes. He had no idea how, but he was positive Chin knew things no one could know. He’d been careful, damn it, his whole life built by layer and layer of protection.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He affected a puzzled look on his face. “Why?”

“You’ve been holed up in here for a couple of hours and quieter than usual.” Chin crossed his arms over his chest and took a step in. For a second, it looked like he wanted to say more, but then his face settled into a placid mask. Anyone who knew Chin knew he epitomized that old ‘still waters run deep’ adage, so that particular look of his could be as alarming as anything. “That’s all.”

“This case is catching up with me. Like Kono said, we’ve all been burning the candle at both ends for a couple of weeks now.” 

Chin looked at him, didn’t say a word for a good few seconds. Steve knew he was probably projecting. There was no actual way Chin could know about him or the proclivities he had spent a lifetime hiding and denying. 

“Okay, fine. I might also be reconsidering the wisdom of bringing a civilian onto the case,” Steve said, which was an incomplete truth, but a truth nonetheless. He ran a hand through his hair and gave Chin a sheepish smile. “It was an impulsive move.”

“Maybe, but it was also smart. The groundwork he laid here alone demonstrates that Williams was a formidable detective. His jacket from Newark only confirms that. He knows his stuff and I’m sure he’ll bring a lot to the table. Fresh eyes are never a bad thing,” Chin said with a shrug. “Not sure how you’re going to explain it to Governor Jameson, but that’s not my job. We’re an unorthodox group already. Williams will probably fit right in.”

Jameson. Steve perked up. Oh, he should have thought of that. She might be the only way out of this for him. Sure, she’d given him free rein to create and run this team as he saw fit, but surely she might have some objections to bringing in a civilian, even that civilian came with recent and stellar law enforcement history. He glanced at the phone, his fingers twitching to reach for it. Before he could make the call which would help prevent his own demise, he heard voices from the tech room and he checked his watch. Ten AM. Shit.

“Boss,” Kono shouted. “Company.” 

Steve took a deep breath and stood, caught Chin being inscrutably solemn at him again as he rounded the desk and brushed by him and out the door. He’d made his bed, now he had to … bad analogy, he thought, as he moved his eyes up from the floor and was met with a perfect view of a perfect butt. He stared for a millisecond at the curve of a strong back leading to, to … he would defy anyone not to call it magnificent. Williams turned and destroyed the view just in the nick of time, before Steve could give himself away for all to see. He could do this. He’d _been_ doing it for years; now was no different, no different at all. 

“This isn’t relevant to the case, but I have to know. It’s been driving me crazy. What the hell is with the name of your club?” Steve heard Kono ask Williams.

“Ah, that. To be honest, it was a mistake. My brother was out visiting and insisted on helping me get set up. Despite knowing he’s a colossal mess at details, I let him order the sign. What I wanted was _The Winking Haole_ ,” Wiliams said. His face was faintly pink. He ducked his head and shook it. “You know, as kind of a passive-aggressive kiss-off to everyone who labeled me that, including the Honolulu Police Department, thank you very much…”

Williams looked like he would have continued on for a long time, but he saw Steve approaching and trailed off.

“McGarrett. Nice place you have.” Williams lost the rueful look and gave him a crooked smile instead. “Very, ah, scenic.”

He watched Williams ogle first Kono and then Chin, openly and without any trace of shame. Steve wasn’t proud of the envy he had, or his thoughts of how this man must have had a much easier life than he had if he could be so comfortable with something that had been hard coded as _badwrongdon’t_ for himself. He wasn’t supposed to want that kind of comfort, he knew that. He wanted it anyway, and there was something about Danny that made him yearn for it even more. He forced himself to ignore the leering and smile back.

“Williams,” Steve said, extending a hand for a shake. 

A prickle of _something_ hit him when their skin contacted, similar to what he’d felt when Williams had grabbed his arm last night. Steve let go quickly, which prompted the other man’s smile to broaden slightly. He clenched his jaw once in annoyance, distractedly rubbed his hand on his hip and tried to tell himself it was all in his head. There was no physiological, tangible reaction between people. It just didn’t work that way. 

“I take it you found it all right?”

“I’ve been on this pineapple infested island for several months now. I did know where the _Ali’iolani Hale_ was, thank you.” Danny’s attention turned briefly to Steve’s hand, still brushing off on his hip, then up at his face. His eyes were brighter, less icy in the daylight than they were in a darkened club. “All I had to do was spot the enormous truck in the parking lot – a classic symbol of overcompensation if ever there was one – and considering our interaction so far knew it had to be yours. It was a matter of basic deduction to determine your office was situated nearby.”

Kono emitted an odd sound, part laugh, part cackle, part choke and turned so her hair hid her face. If she was hoping the hair would also act as a sound barrier, she was sorely mistaken. 

“I have no need to overcompensate,” Steve said, perhaps a hair too defensively. Damn Dann … Williams and his ability to set him off kilter, including the shit-eating grin being tossed his way as the man obviously saw right through him. “This is my team.”

“Chin Ho Kelly, veteran cop rumored to be dirty, and Kono Kalakaua, former beach bunny,” Williams said, grinning more at the collectively offended stares boring into him. “What, you’re going to tell me you didn’t google the crap outta me? I like to know who I’m working with, even temporarily. That said, I doubt anyone who was actually dirty would want back on the force and, well, anyone who can ride a damned plank of foam and fiberglass is clearly crazy enough for this job.”

Chin recovered first, a slow smile spreading across his face. He assessed Williams without a word, switched his attention to Steve for a moment, then went back to Williams. He stuck his hand out and said, “Brah.”

Williams twitched, but shook Chin’s hand then moved to Kono. By Steve’s estimation, the guy’s physical contact lingered too long with both. The irritation was irrational and he knew it, but it made him itch. He didn’t say anything. He knew what it would look like if he ripped Williams’s hand away from Kono’s. He knew, too, that he would never be able to keep his internal layers in place if he obsessed over stupid things like whether or not Williams wanted to get into Chin’s or Kono’s pants. It wasn’t where his focus needed to be. 

“I assume you’ve looked over the stuff McGarrett absconded with last night.” 

“Absconded,” Kono said dazedly.

“So maybe we should start with you catching me up on the angles you’ve already explored,” Danny said, not pausing a beat at Kono’s interruption. His hands flew with what seemed to be pent-up energy. “Even though they’re probably wrong, there might be something worth keeping in there.”

“Your modesty is truly astonishing. Seriously, it’s a wonder how you keep your ego under wraps,” Steve said, hackles rising. He couldn’t keep himself from taking the bait. He mentally cursed his mouth and sighed. “But it’s a good idea. Chin.”

The only word Steve would apply to how quickly he returned to his office was flee. He fled, that was precisely what he did, needing some distance to get himself in some kind of order. He needed a plan to keep Danny … Williams … oh, hell, _Danny_ from getting under his skin. He sat on the edge of his chair, back ramrod straight and looked at the phone. He still had time to bring this to Jameson’s attention, but now he wasn’t sure she’d do anything about it. Danny’s words rang in his head – the team was comprised of a disgraced cop, a pro surfer turned rookie and a Navy SEAL with a mother lode of mental issues. Chin was right. Danny fit, and temporarily adding a civilian gay bar owner probably wouldn’t make the governor flinch, at least not one with Danny’s extensive background. 

Steve had to get over it, get over the mess in his head and get the case done. Catching the killer was far and away more important than his own issues, and it seemed impossible that years of caution (repression) could fall away so quickly. He was just exhausted and he wanted to put this monster behind bars or in the ground. If it came to that, he would have no qualms. 

He chewed on his thumbnail, looking from the phone out to the three people gathered around the tech table. Step one was to get his ass out there and do his job. As Steve stood, he saw Danny shift into a ray of light. His stomach clenched at how the light caught on the golden hair on Danny’s arms and the backlighting managed to create a silhouette of his torso through his ridiculously tight dress shirt. The effect was one of an overall soft glow. Jesus, there was something so beautiful about the guy and something so, so wrong with himself for being unable to quell his reactions. He stood for a moment to compose himself, watched the easy exchange of conversation between Chin, Kono and Danny and could practically sense them bouncing thoughts off of each other. It hit him like a bolt of lightning. Oh, _shit_ , Steve understood one more thing he wasn’t prepared to handle. 

In the short time Steve had known him, Danny had likely become an indefinable and real _something_ that was enough to keep him here. 

He couldn’t have an epiphany that would break the case open. No, he had to have one that was like a chisel and hammer to his already splitting layers. Steve paused at the threshold of his office. Looking at Danny, still radiant in the late morning light, he was terrified now it was too late to put anything back together, and that once it all lay at his feet he wouldn’t have an identity. Not one he could recognize. Not one anyone would consider a leader, a SEAL … normal. 

As if sensing him gawking, Danny looked up and caught his eye. In that one moment, there was none of the snipey arrogance that usually oozed from the guy, only something vulnerable and genuine as he dipped his head once, a soft smile on his lips, before he turned back to Chin and Kono. Steve was a logical person, yet he found himself intrinsically certain that the Danny he’d met in his club and the one who joked at his expense a few minutes ago was mostly a shield and that small glimpse was who he was under it all. Maybe he wasn’t the only one guarding secrets. The possibility alone made him feel like there was hope for him. He stepped out of the office, made it only part of the way to the tech table when his cell rang. All eyes turned to him, as he fumbled the phone out of his pocket. 

“McGarrett,” he answered.

“Commander McGarrett, it’s Sergeant Lukela.”

“Duke.”

Instantly, Chin and Kono stiffened then headed for their gear. Danny furrowed his eyebrows and shifted his attention between the three of them alternately. 

“We’ve got another one,” Duke said. “This one was found under a park bench at Ala Moana Park.”

“Shit. That’s way more public than ever before,” Steve said. He nodded at Chin, who was thumbing toward the door. “You sure it’s our guy?”

“Same MO. It seems pretty likely. This poor guy, he’s … well, it’s bad.” 

“We’re on the way. Text us what part of the park.”

Grimly, Steve brushed by Danny to get his own pack. He should have anticipated the other man would latch onto him, but the strong grip on his forearm startled him anyway. He glared at Danny. As much as he begrudgingly, bemusedly enjoyed the other man’s acerbic nature, there wasn’t time for any delay. Reasonably, he knew their latest victim wasn’t going anywhere but the morgue, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Williams,” he said.

“You might as well call me Danny,” Danny said, “and I’m coming with you. Do not try to pull that ‘you’re a civilian’ bullshit I can see is already crossing your mind. I am part of the team until we put this asshole away, okay? We don’t really have time to argue.”

“Fine.” Steve stalked to the door, just closing from Chin and Kono’s exit through it. “But keep a low profile … Danny.”

Danny looked like he wanted to argue the directive, but Steve didn’t give him the chance. He took off after Chin and Kono, checked his phone for Duke’s text, and trusted that Danny would be at his heels. 

“Hey, gigantor,” Danny shouted when they reached the parking lot. “Would it impede the investigation if we took my car? I know how these things go and, well, I have somewhere I have to be in a couple of hours. I don’t want to be at your mercy.”

Steve huffed, to disguise the unbidden swell of desire at the particular way Danny said that and the particular words he used. He had no doubt the short tenure of their working relationship would be nonstop antagonism, but he didn’t know why the idea excited him rather than made it easier to keep himself together for the duration. That wasn’t strictly true; the part of him that wanted to stay buried knew all too well. He valiantly tried to ignore the images of Danny splayed out beneath him, maybe gagged and perhaps tied to his headboard, completely into it and completely at Steve’s mercy. Stop. Stop. Wrong. No. He perused the parking lot, spotted Danny’s car in a heartbeat. Two could play Pin The Vehicle On The Driver.

“And you gave me shit for overcompensation,” Steve muttered as he headed for a shiny, silver, late model Camaro. 

Danny popped the trunk as Steve walked by, so he tossed his pack in and clicked the trunk shut. He slid into the car as Danny started it up and the engine roared to life. The car pulled to the parking lot exit, where Danny put on the brakes and looked at Steve.

“Where am I going?”

“Ala Moana Park.”

Danny nodded and resumed forward motion. As they drove, the atmosphere in the car became less fraught with whatever Steve thought he was feeling for Danny and more tense with the weight of where they were going. If this was one of their killer’s victims, and he had no reason to think Duke was wrong about that, it was a dark day. His frustrations were primarily introspective – he should have been able to catch this asshole by now. Some cases could turn around in a day. This one had dragged out, and his failure to put a stop to it had cost two more men their lives. The only sliver of positive he could find was in knowing that Danny was on board now. Beyond all of the confusing, unwanted attraction, last night he had seen the drive in the other man’s eyes, and Chin was right about this too – the fresh perspective would do them all good. He was sure of it.

“Chin and Kono catch you up on where we’ve gotten on this?” Steve asked.

“Partly. You know the Bureau’s going to step in,” Danny said as he made a rude gesture to another driver and then maneuvered his car like he was a stunt driver, both activities so much the antithesis of Hawai’ian drivers they seemed extreme. 

“Governor’s holding them at bay. Jesus, where’d you learn to drive?” Steve all but gasped it as Danny weaved around three drivers. He was actually kind of impressed, though, and took mental notes on how to hone his own skills. “NASCAR?”

“Something like that.”

They returned to silence. Steve surreptitiously checked out Danny’s profile several times during the trip, made longer by the traffic Danny muttered vulgar imprecations about. Strong jaw, stubbornly set. A bit of scalp showing through the slicked back hair was somehow endearing. He caught himself staring too long once and jerked his eyes forward. He couldn’t both want to rebuild layers _and_ split more of them off by ogling like a damned teenager. Those things were mutually exclusive. Especially when they … he was on a case like this. He was quite definitely fucked in the head.

“East side,” Steve said as they approached the park.

Once they had pulled up next to Kono’s car, Steve practically vaulted out of the Camaro, striding toward the yellow tape and Dr. Max Bergman, the medical examiner. He caught Chin and Kono already leaning over the body, gloves on and tired, angry expressions on their faces. Again, he didn’t wait for Danny to follow. He ducked under the tape keeping the general public and, shit – now they wanted the story – reporters at bay. Vultures. He shot them an angry glare and didn’t care if it made it on the news with an unflattering caption or voiceover. 

“Max.” Steve gestured to where he knew Danny was, to his left and just behind him. “This is Danny Williams, he’ll be consulting with us for the remainder of this case.”

“Ah, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” Max said. He quirked his head and held out his hand, giving a little bow.

Danny never took the offered hand. He shoved the pack he must have retrieved from the trunk at Steve.

Steve fumbled with the bag and turned, saw Danny’s jaw was clenched and his focus was behind Max, on the body. He looked … pinched, the lines around his eyes deepened into grooves and skin pale. Without a word, Danny spun around and walked away quickly, shoulders stiff and hands balled into fists at his side. Steve stood there and watched him go, confused.

“Was it something I said?” 

“Where’s new guy going? I thought he was a seasoned veteran back on the mainland.”

Max and Kono’s questions were spoken almost on top of each other, but Steve really had no good answer for either of them. Then he looked at the body and it made horrible sense. Damn it. He frowned unhappily and tossed another glance over his shoulder, saw Danny pacing by his car in tight lines that seemed controlled from a distance but were probably evidence of him barely holding it together. Steve knew he needed a few minutes, maybe more.

“He is, Kono, but Danny knew this guy,” Steve said. He glanced at Kono, feeling adrift and angry for Danny, at levels that seemed disproportionate. “Our vic worked at his bar.”


	2. Chapter 2

He hated this. So much. 

In life, Rex’s personality had been huge. It had filled up all the little spaces in a room, and brought pleasure on so many different levels to so many different people. Himself included, because despite his best efforts to maintain a professional boss/subordinate relationship with the guy, in reality, Rex had been _his friend_. His bright, beautiful and larger than life friend who lay on a cold metal table in the morgue now, empty and small. 

He hadn’t been able to go in, yesterday, with McGarrett and the twitchy medical examiner. He’d lingered outside the huge window, like an autopsy report was a spectator sport. Danny hadn’t made it as a detective in Newark by having a squeamish stomach, but there were some things he still had difficulty with. As it turned out, seeing a friend’s beaten, brutalized body was near the top of the list. He’d wanted to tear someone apart, and he knew if he had gone in there while Doctor Bergman confirmed what was already patently obvious about cause of death, that someone would be a scapegoat, a replacement target. He knew his limits.

The rage had subsided to a manageable level since then, but seeing all of the intimate details of Rex’s life spread out on multiple computer screens had made his stomach churn. His phone ringing had seemed like a saved-by-the-bell moment as he’d stepped out into the hall, then down into the largely empty rotunda of the _Ali’iolani Hale_. He’d caught the inquisitive looks at the ringtone he had for Michael – a snippet of Radiohead’s Creep – and ignored them. But now he realized pinning his hopes on his fucking special creep of an ex was as foolish as ever.

“Michael, don’t be an asshole,” Danny snarled into the phone. “I don’t have the stomach for it today.”

“I’m being absolutely reasonable, _Daniel_ ,” Michael returned, calm and almost prim. “I pointed out that once again other things are more important to you than my daughter.”

“Our. She is our daughter.” Danny started lap three of the rotunda, needing to let the worst of his pent up anger out in a way he wouldn’t pay for later. “Do not pull the biological father bullshit on me right now. I just need you to please, please be understanding and allow me to switch from this weekend to next.”

When he’d told the rest of his employees about Rex and asked them to help fill in while he caught the person responsible, big, muscular tough guy Honu had cried like a child. That, too, was an image he couldn’t shake. 

“Danny, you know what this will do to Grace. How can you keep doing these things to her?”

Danny was well and truly stuck. With Michael, it was the same exact conversation over and over. Different words, maybe, but it all boiled down to him being deemed unfit. He took a deep breath.

“Twice in the six months since I landed on this rock is not a consistent pattern, so if you’re thinking about…” Danny’s voice was thick and he had to stop. 

“It’s the beginning of a pattern we both know too well.”

He was pretty sure he felt like he burst a blood vessel right behind his left eye. Danny halted his circuit, right near the corridor that lead back to the Five-0 offices. 

“Jesus, Michael, please,” he said, loud enough he heard himself echo back. He guessed he was lucky it wasn’t tourist season. He carried on, more hushed, “A man, someone I knew quite well, is dead. The guy I had to go to work for on Thursday, I’m sure you remember that. Well, while you were giving me shit about having to drop Grace off early, he was probably getting raped with a goddamned beer bottle and murdered.”

And Danny was cursing Rex for no-showing. He scrunched his eyes shut for a moment. 

“Don’t you fucking mess with me over this.”

It was seven AM on a Saturday and that alone would have made him cranky any other time, but he’d been up all night scouring every detail of Rex’s life and he couldn’t take Michael ragging on him for being who he was. Not ever again, but especially today. Letting it all out like that, though, was a critical mistake and he knew it by the complete silence on the other end of the line. 

“Even running a gay bar, danger manages to find you,” Michael said quietly. “You’re dangerous, Danny, you always have been. Don’t you see, I’m only trying to protect Grace? Oh, I’ll keep her this weekend. I’ll keep her all of the weekends after it, too. It’ll break her heart at first, but at least she’ll be safe.”

“Michael, please, you can’t take her away…” Danny said, desperation making him choke.

But the ringing in his ears was actually a return to that total silence, only now it sounded final. Michael had hung up. Danny bent forward, dropping his phone to put both hands on his knees to keep himself at least partially upright. He knew his life had never been perfect, but in the last week it had flushed down to a near all-time low. Michael couldn’t take Grace, he could not, for that would kill Danny as surely as some sick son of a bitch had killed Rex. The threat was very real, and there was too much in his head. He needed to fight for Grace; he needed to fight for Rex. He needed … he couldn’t seem to catch a full breath and this wasn’t him. He didn’t fall apart like this. He was just so tired. 

“Danny?”

The soft voice was accompanied by a gentle hand on his shoulder, and both made him jerk upright. Danny spun on the person who’d caught him in a near meltdown and saw Kono staring at him with worried, dark eyes. She looked so young, so much like another kind of younger sister to him already, though he’d known her for less than one full day. He didn’t want her seeing him like this.

“Gimme a minute,” Danny said before it could get any more awkward, and nearly ran for the men’s room. 

Once inside, he leaned heavily against the nearest sink and let his head hang forward. The faucet dripped slowly, the little plink-plink sound a gentle cadence to how uneven his breathing still was. Danny let the rhythm slow him down, then he turned the water on to splash some on his face. He scrubbed his hands down rough stubble and looked at his reflection. What he saw was a pathetic excuse of a person. It pissed him off, seeing that sad sack bastard staring at him, someone who couldn’t seem to do anything right, not the stuff that mattered the most. He drew his hand back into a fist, too intent on obliterating all evidence of that fucker to realize the door had opened and someone else had entered the room until a strong grip on his wrist stopped him from smashing the mirror. Even then, he’d barely registered _that_ when his arm was wrenched back and he was bent over sharply.

“Don’t do that.” 

As if the humiliation couldn’t get any worse, Danny thought. He twisted to get free from the strong hands holding him and couldn’t. 

“Let me up, you jackass,” Danny said. 

“You going to do something stupid like break your hand on a mirror? Because I can’t afford to lose anyone on the team, even a temp, temporarily,” Steve said, his grip steel but his voice held a note of uncertainty. “I’ll only let you go if you promise not to do it.”

Suddenly, his anger had a familiar outlet. He’d been managing. He’d been _fine_ , and then this damned male model had walked into his club. Danny knew in the reasonable part of his brain that it wouldn’t have mattered, and that running into Steve was an unrelated event to him digging up a serial murderer, but it didn’t matter. Right now, it had all started with Steve and he was pissed about the horrendous twists his life had taken in such a short time.

“Fine. I promise.” Danny wriggled until his shoulder strained. His skin felt itchy and hot. “No punching the mirror.”

Steve eased his arm back down to his side and let him go gently, which gave him the perfect opportunity to do something more idiotic than punching a mirror. Danny spun the second he was free. He wasn’t thinking, really, as he shoved at Steve’s chest with both hands until the other man was pinned against the door. He certainly wasn’t thinking when he grabbed the scruff of Steve’s neck and pulled him down into a rough, aggressive kiss, or when he kept on going when Steve froze for a second, two, and finally kissed him back almost as angrily. They fumbled at each other, all tongues and teeth clashing painfully and hands that didn’t quite know where best to go yet. 

It wasn’t a good kiss, it was awkward and almost violent, but it sent a jolt through him nonetheless and Danny needed it like he needed life. He needed those big hands of Steve’s on his ass, tugging him closer like Steve wanted him to crawl inside. He needed more. The bathroom was full of angry sounds, half-formed grunts and the wetness of their kiss. It made him dizzy, stupid. The chemistry between them was as real and heady as he’d been imagining for days. Better. Stronger. Fucking addictive.

And, then just when he’d gotten his hands on the button on Steve’s cargos, the kiss ended with actual violence. Danny should have expected Steve to shove him away so forcefully he hit the sink with his funny bone, and then follow up with a right hook. Instinct had him throwing a punch back when he regained his balance, a left uppercut for the tall son of a bitch. 

Steve grabbed his jaw and stared at him wild-eyed, shoulders heaving as he breathed roughly. He ran his forearm across his mouth and shook his head, the message silent but clear as his face transitioned from shocked to horrified and angry. 

“What the hell?” Steve asked, voice low and unsteady. “What the hell was that?”

Danny had a couple of choices. He could point out that Steve knew very well what it was as evidenced by the obvious erection his military issue cargo pants failed to hide, or he could avoid a full-on fistfight and back off. 

“Like you said, I was about to do something stupid. Well, that was something stupid. That’s what it was,” Danny said, his own breathing sketchy. He clutched his elbow for a second, then shook it out. It _had_ been stupid, but it had not been a complete mistake. No one kissed back like that unless there was something there. He held his hands up, breathing under better control. “Sorry. We’re both too tightly wound right now and I crossed a big line.”

Maybe it was because he was too riled up over Rex’s death and Michael’s jackassery to think straight, but he didn’t want to let this go, whatever it was, at least not permanently. He’d back off for now, but he’d be back to this. Steve had given as good as he’d gotten and he was sure it meant something even if Steve didn’t want to acknowledge it. Danny sensed now wasn’t the time. He wasn’t going to push someone who had worked so hard to build a believable façade.

He knew something about that himself. 

“I could really use this case to focus on right now, but if you don’t want me in on it anymore I’ll understand.” Danny shook his head. “Just please, find this bastard.”

For several seconds, they stood facing each other, still nearly intimate in proximity. Danny knew he should take a step back – Steve really had nowhere to go – but the air was charged and he didn’t move. He watched Steve’s face at his words and saw a glimmer of something he couldn’t name. Steve had relaxed infinitesimally as Danny had made his apology, but at his offer to stop consulting another version of his horrified face returned. Danny wondered how many faces this hardass Navy SEAL with an impeccable record had (Steve wasn’t the only one to have researched, and Danny was quite sure the other man would be upset to know how much he’d been able to find out; he had contacts back east), and if he knew he was basically an open book for anyone who cared to read it. 

Steve opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, looking like a fish out of water as he tried to form a response. 

“Nuh,” Steve finally started to say.

That was as far as he got before a loud rapping at the door made both of them jump. Steve twisted to look at the door like he expected it to open and unleash fire and brimstone upon him. He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it further. He glanced at Danny sharply, a silent order to keep his mouth shut.

Danny nodded, but he knew neither of them were going to manage to keep up what was essentially a lie forever. Lies were easiest when they were self-told. Shared ones took on new life, new meaning; they were more difficult to bury. He was more positive than ever that Steve felt much the same way he did. One of the things Danny had been able to learn about Steve was that his childhood had been rocky and as he watched the other man panic at the prospect of being caught, he could imagine a young, confused version of Steve standing there instead. Danny had gotten it in his head he could help; it wasn’t in his nature to walk away from a challenge. That confused young kid still setting up camp in Steve’s body deserved, at the very least, a voice and an ear to listen to it.

“Uh, guys? Everything okay in there?” Chin called. He waited a moment for some objection, then popped his head in. He focused on Danny. “You all right?”

“I’m good,” Danny said, knowing Kono had sent first Steve and now Chin to check on him. He was touched, truly, a burst of warmth at their concern like a balm to the inner turmoil he was feeling. “We’re fine.”

“What’ve you got, Chin?” Steve asked, brisk and apparently back in charge.

“Kono found something I think you’ll want to take a look at.”

While Steve strode out of the room as if nothing had happened, Danny rubbed absently at his lips and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. For some reason, he didn’t look as pathetic as he had before, when he probably should look more so. He smoothed his hair into place, checked the red, smudgy bruise on his jaw and then followed after Chin and Steve. He studied Steve’s broad shoulders, as stiff and straight as ever. As much as he felt torn between Grace and justice for Rex and all of the other victims, now he thought Steve was another worthwhile thing to add to his list and instead of pressure he felt … right. Somehow, he realized, and it made no sense whatsoever, McGarrett had become Steve, and Steve had proven to be distraction enough for him to get his head into a more workable place. 

Even if he was one of the most repressed individuals Danny had ever met, there was something outside of his own stubborn streak that made him want to stick with Steve to see what might happen. That same something made him believe the investment of time would pay many (frustrating and exhilarating) dividends.

By the time he made it into the offices, the Five-0 trio was already gathered around the tech table, apparently where they often exchanged information. The wall monitors were filled with images. Danny hung back a step or two. It might have been him who’d gotten them to stop casing every gay club in Honolulu, but this was Kono’s show and he could see on her face she had that excitement he’d always had when something clicked on a case. The thrill of impending victory. His other personal demons would have to wait (oh, shit, _Gracie_ ), this one was going down.

“I’ve based this on the idea that we’d yield more information by examining Rex Akana’s life,” Kono started, pausing to give Danny a sympathetic look, “since his was the most recent murder. I was looking for any kind of connection between our vics, something we hadn’t considered before. Something less obvious. I found one. It turns out Rex had started seeing a psychiatrist not that long ago, whose private practice happened to be in the same business complex, on the same floor, as where our eleventh victim Kai Kealoha’s employer is also housed. It circles out from there, the connections less solid as we go, but they’re still there. Several of the first victims were frequent visitors at the River of Life and Safe Haven missions, where our doctor happened to volunteer his time.”

“You think it’s the shrink,” Danny said flatly. The idea of someone using his position to lure and prey pissed him off thoroughly.

“I think he’s good for it. He’s the only connection between the vics that we’ve seen.” Kono stepped to the side, ushering Danny closer, into the group. “I don’t have anything concrete, though, just my gut.”

“The gut instinct won’t win a case, cuz,” Chin said, “but any good detective will tell you it’s vital to the investigation. We’ve got this guy tangentially linked to at least five of our victims. That’s more than your gut, it’s enough to pursue him as the most viable lead we’ve had so far.”

“Yeah,” Kono said. She chewed on her lip. “The problem is, he hasn’t got so much as a parking ticket.”

“Kono, I assume we have a name on this guy?” Steve asked. 

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m must be too tired. I’m doing this kind of backwards. It’s Doctor Todd Farber.” Kono jabbed at the tabletop a few times, flicked her elegant hands to toss one more image up on the monitors, a driver’s license. “Longtime resident of O’ahu, went to UH-Manoa for undergrad and then medical school. Before that he went to …”

“Kukui.” 

Something in Steve’s tone in just that one word set off warning bells in Danny. He pulled his attention from the enlarged picture of the bland-looking potential murderer to focus on Steve. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chin do the same. Steve’s face was locked in a blank mask, his eyes hollow. Unconsciously, Danny took a step forward. Steve knew this guy, that much Danny could tell. He could also tell the trip down memory lane wasn’t a happy one.

This case was fucking with them in way too personal ways. In that moment, Danny was glad he wasn’t a cop full-time anymore. There would be no more personal cases for him. For some reason, that didn’t give him as much comfort as it should have.

“He was in my class,” Steve said, addressing them all with a monotone voice. “I remember him. I also remember there were always rumors about him.”

“About what?” Kono asked.

“That he was gay. Kids weren’t any kinder back then than they are now. And true or not…” Steve swallowed and glanced at the floor. “…he took a lot of shit about it, some of it nonviolent, heckling and harassment. Some of it was pretty rough, I think. I remember seeing him with bruises, sometimes.”

It didn’t matter how old Danny got or how comfortable he was with his own sexual identity, hearing stories of that type of abuse always hit him hard. While it was true that it did get better with time, often that was an unfathomable concept to accept as an adolescent. He’d hidden himself for so long for fear of what others would do to him, the ridicule, the potential abandonment. He eyed Steve and worried at the corner of his lip.

“So, this was a guy bullied at school as a kid. Have we looked at his home life?” Steve asked.

“Parents died in a house fire just after he turned seventeen. He was apparently lucky to have not been home at the time, if you can call losing your parents like that lucky,” Kono said. “That’s about all I’ve been able to pin down, but I’m on it.”

“It might have bearing, but I don’t know if it’s important,” Chin said. “Say he actually is gay, clearly the experiences he had in high school alone or compounded with home life impacted him profoundly, whether he’s our guy or not. Either he grew up to become a psychiatrist to help others like him…”

“Or he grew up repressed as hell, something triggered him and now he’s punishing those who were able to find some peace within themselves,” Danny said quietly, picking up where Chin had obviously been heading. He knew something about wanting to find peace. “The way he couldn’t.”

His attention was still riveted on Steve, who flinched at his words but then turned and met his eyes for the first time since their … altercation in the men’s room. Gone was the blankness and in its place was pure pain. Jesus. Danny knew right that second he should run, fast and far, from this man who was more screwed in the head than he was. He edged closer to Steve and took hold of his elbow, out of sight of the others, because this Farber guy was _not_ like him. Not where it counted; Danny knew that after having barely met him. He wanted Steve to understand it, and that he’d be okay.

Steve tensed for several seconds, then he relaxed into the touch and leaned ever so slightly toward Danny as if there were an invisible tie between them.

H50H50

When his little sister had been four years old, she’d been fixated on _Bambi_. She’d watch it every day, sometimes more than once. Mary had been far too young to understand the darker themes running through the story, had only liked the cute baby animals. It had quickly become one of Steve’s least favorite movies, but extreme exposure had seared certain scenes into his memory. Right now he couldn’t decide if he felt like the scene where Bambi’s mother died and all the gut wrenching horror that came with it, or the one where Bambi tried to stand on ice, constantly falling and constantly having a tiny, irrepressible Thumper trying to shore him back up until they both ended up in a snowbank together.

“We’ve tapped into all of the feeds from the existing cameras, and the areas he didn’t have them have mostly been covered by ours. And we’re right here, just like we have been every night,” Chin said, nudging Steve’s knee with his own. “We don’t know if Farber will make his move tonight, but if he does, Danny’ll be fine. This guy’s not killing another person on our watch.”

It was definitely trying-to-stand-on-ice Bambi. 

The use of Danny’s name had his heart racing, his proverbial legs slip out from beneath him. Steve jerked his leg away from Chin’s, realized he’d been jostling his knee up and down. He couldn’t seem to settle, a jangle of nerves and nausea. He knew this had been their only option, but he still didn’t like it. He had finally been able to admit to himself why having Danny undercover to catch a serial killer bothered him, but he wasn’t quite ready to deal with it. How could he be expected to deal so quickly with something thirty-four years in the making? He gave Chin what he hoped was a steady look and a half smile, and was met with one of those knowing looks that continued to unnerve him. 

“I know he won’t, and I know Danny’ll be okay.”

They’d found next to nothing in digging through Farber’s life the way they’d dissected all of the victims’, except for the fact his parents had been highly conservative as well as highly religious, and the circumstances surrounding the fire that killed them seemed suspicious now but had never been investigated then. All four of them had agreed there was something about the guy that sent up enough red flags they felt compelled to continue despite the lack of hard evidence.

For Steve, Farber was more than a potential monster. If Farber _was_ that monster, then he was what Steve could have been, had he chosen another path. He hung his head, remembering how he’d punched Danny for kissing him only a few days ago, without forethought or control. It had been fear and revulsion directing his actions. Self-loathing. It scared the shit out him.

Then he remembered Danny stepping to his side and giving him support anyway.

_“What if…” Kono said hesitantly, then stopped._

_Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. Overly tired, he was sure every last layer he’d put in place had fallen off and landed on the men’s room floor. He couldn’t stop thinking about Danny’s mouth on his, his hands all over him and the absolute self-assurance the other man possessed. It was all swirling together, the brutality of the murders, the sickening connection he couldn’t help but feel toward Farber, and then there was Danny. For some reason, it always came back to Danny. Steve was better than this. He knew how to separate his inner demons to focus on the external ones. Danny should be no different, yet he was._

_“What if what, Kono? Don’t be shy, spit it out. It’s your intel that got us this far,” Steve said._

_Kono looked at him for a moment before she spoke, as if weighing her options._

_“He’s clearly very smart. He wasn’t top of his class, but he wasn’t a slouch either. And even as he’s escalated and his control has degraded, he’s left no evidence behind. We can’t get a search warrant for his home or office. Maybe we need to smoke him out.”_

_“Send someone back in undercover,” Chin said. “It could work better than trolling the clubs did now that we have a focus. No confession of guilt would be admissible in court, though. It’d be entrapment.”_

_Danny had been quiet for nearly an hour as they dissected Farber’s life and all of the information they had on the murders. Chin and Kono didn’t appear to have noticed, but Steve did. Steve was hyper aware of Danny’s presence and the way the other man didn’t act like anything had happened between them. His own brain wouldn’t let it go, but Danny seemed to have no problem. He was embarrassed to be bothered by that, though that was precisely what he’d wanted – to forget it had happened._

_He hadn’t meant to deck Danny, was the thing, but then he hadn’t meant to kiss him back either. All he’d wanted to do when he’d gone in search of Danny was express normal concern. When Kono had run to grab him, muttering something about Danny and crying and maybe his ex, Steve had wanted to see if the guy was okay, that was it. He’d ended up with the taste of Danny on his tongue and full-body panic as a result of how much he’d needed it. Not had needed, as in that moment. Did need. Steve could barely focus with Danny so close, he didn’t dare look at him. He didn’t have much choice as Danny burst into motion, coming up to join them at the table again, grasping at the edges of it with a white-knuckled grip. It was fascinating to watch._

_“It doesn’t fucking matter,” Danny snapped, breaking into the discussion Chin and Kono had continued to have. “He’s not going to confess anything to a patient, real or police plant. What he’s going to do, maybe, if we play it right, is try to kill a patient. If you do the undercover thing, that’s gotta be the ultimate goal. We gotta give him the perfect bait and catch him at it. Get the confession when he’s in custody after he’s demonstrated reasonable suspicion of guilt.”_

_Chin and Kono both stared at Danny as if they’d forgotten he was there, but began bobbing their heads in agreement after a few seconds. As for Steve, his critical error was getting sucked into the fiery anger in Danny’s normally ice blue eyes. He had to agree that Danny was right, but he didn’t like the thought of a sacrificial lamb, even one trained for undercover work. In his experience, there were only so many contingencies a person could come up with. Knowing the intelligence of their suspect, it wouldn’t be an easy op._

_“I agree that’s the way to go, but we need someone to play this role,” Chin said. “Farber might remember Steve, so he’s out. I don’t think I could pull it off, if I’m going to be honest. Kono’s obviously the wrong gender.”_

_“We can draw from HPD,” Steve said. “I’ll call right n…”_

_“No. Don’t call anyone. I’ll do it,” Danny said resolutely, interrupting him. “We don’t need to bring anyone else up to speed, here. God knows I have enough issues to keep an act going long enough to draw him out.”_

_The very thought of it chilled Steve to the bone and he could no longer claim ignorance as to why. The images of thirteen beaten, raped and murdered men raced through his head, followed quickly by the passionate, wild-eyed Danny that had kissed him. He shook his head._

_“Don’t deny me the chance to get this bastard, Steve.” Danny looked straight at him, finally. “For Rex.”_

_The desperate and pleading expression was almost physically painful, and Steve was again struck with how open Danny was with his emotions. He couldn’t deny that Danny had a claim to this, badge or no badge, but the risk of a civilian taking this on was too much, even for a task force designated with full immunity and means. Once upon a time, he’d pondered calling the governor as an excuse to keep Danny away. It was his trump card now._

_“The governor won’t go for it. Sorry, Danny, but we have to find an alternative.”_

There’d been no alternative. Three days later, Steve still couldn’t believe that Governor Jameson had given a halfhearted protest at best before she agreed to let Danny do this, as long as he signed a liability waiver first. Like he was a damned contestant on a reality television show who might get a case of Montezuma’s Revenge or be revealed as a complete tool, not raped and murdered. Steve couldn’t protest much – she’d been instrumental in keeping the FBI out of this, after all, and she’d reminded him of it when she’d laid out her terms. Danny had signed the form with the relish of a man with nothing to lose and had gone back to his regular life, insisting on breaking obvious contact with Five-0 for reasons none of them could argue. Steve, Chin and Kono tracked him and also watched Farber like a hawk.

It was rather alarming how much Steve missed having Danny there with them, as a direct part of the team. As part of his life, if he were going to be honest. He’d thought it would have been a relief to not have Danny so close to him. Now that he’d lost nearly all of his protective layers, self-honesty seemed like the only way to go. He’d thought a lot about himself through Farber in the past three days. He wondered if what he’d needed all along was to accept who he was at the core rather than be afraid of it and hide it. If Danny was the _something_ he’d been looking for to make him stay, then he was going to have to stop being afraid who he was. Danny, by the very nature Steve already knew he possessed, wouldn’t stand for that.

God, he was in worse trouble than he’d ever dreaded.

Danny had quickly worked himself into Farber’s new patient schedule, and Steve had to admit he was good at what he did. Danny had carefully constructed his need for therapy – lack of acceptance by his parents as a kid, struggles with feeling adequate in relationships, a garden variety of issues, none of which included his asshole ex trying to keep him away from his daughter. He had also carefully constructed every answer he gave to Farber on the theory that the doctor would be angry at the way he accepted the one thing about his life that Farber had never been able to – his sexuality.

The emotional pain Danny revealed in sessions was real, and Steve knew Danny’s act stemmed from things in his life he hadn’t openly shared with any of them. He’d done a little intel gathering based on what Kono had told him. He had … ideas on how to fix that very real problem for Danny, once this was all over. His own relationship with his father had been a mess, but he recognized in the few moments he’d witnessed of Danny with his daughter that there was a strong bond there. He didn’t want that little girl growing up not knowing Danny or, worse, thinking Danny didn’t love her. He could play it off as an apology for punching Danny, but he knew it was more than that.

 _The Winking Hole_ had been lively all night, which didn’t fit the pattern of slow business after a murder that Danny had discovered at all. Chin had surmised it was a show of support, because of Rex. Whatever the cause, the crowd worked as a disadvantage. Steve stared at the shapes moving toward the dark back room of the club. The one that he’d seen the first night he’d met Danny, the one he pretended had made him run. That wasn’t it, of course. It was Danny who made him want to run and stay put at the same time. And it was Danny who had insisted no cameras would be allowed in that room, citing privacy for his patrons. As far as Five-0 was concerned, it was a vacant room. Even the hall camera had a filter on it to make facial recognition difficult, if not impossible. 

It made him nervous to not have every inch of the club covered, but then he couldn’t say with certainty Farber would make his move in such a public venue. He’d degenerated into quicker killings, but not to the point of potential witnesses being near. Steve shifted his gaze to the bar in the main room, spotted Danny easily amid the throng of dancing bodies. Danny was turned to the bar, chatting with one of the bartenders. The thick swirl of lighter blond hair was noticeable from a distance and through low quality cameras. Steve’s palms began to sweat again. He bounced his knee up and down, wished they hadn’t agreed to no sound until Danny deemed it necessary. It hadn’t been Danny’s call to make.

“I’ve never seen you wound up like this,” Chin murmured. He squinted at the monitors silently for a few seconds, not looking over at Steve. “You know, I worked pretty closely with your Dad for a while.”

Steve closed his eyes. He’d been expecting this. His attention and thoughts had been trained on catching Farber, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been aware of Chin’s silent stares, the curious looks that had continued less frequently than when Danny had been around. He no longer ran from Chin, or he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be confined in a small space with him. It wasn’t like he wanted to bare it all, though.

“Chin,” he said, glancing at the other man. “Don’t right now.”

“Then when? I’ve gotten the impression lately that you’re not comfortable around me, and if it’s because of what I think, you have no reason to feel that way. It’s okay, Steve. It really is. And your dad, he … well, he regretted a lot of things in his life. Sending you away was at the top of the list, along with _why_. He just didn’t know how to unbottle it. You’re a lot like him.”

“Chin, please.”

“I thought you should hear it. That’s all. No lecture. No judgment. It’s okay if you like…”

The van suddenly filled with the hard beat of music and rumble of voices. Both Steve and Chin jumped slightly. Danny had turned on his wire. All the energy he’d been building up to defend against Chin’s words switched to attentiveness to Danny. He scanned the crowd, looking for signs of Farber. He didn’t see the other man, but it was getting near to closing time and the men inside the club were on the move, which made it that much more difficult to track. On camera, Danny made a gesture to the bartender and began walking through the crowd in the opposite direction, toward his office. 

“All units, keep an eye out,” Chin said after he tapped the mics live. “The street’s about to get busy. We’ve got closing time and our man inside has activated his wire.”

“Still got the back covered,” Kono said.

The inherent problem with this plan of theirs was that there was no guarantee Farber had picked Danny as his next victim. Danny had felt pretty sure he was pushing all the right buttons with Farber, as several of the psychiatrist’s leading questions in their last session had had a ring of derision to them. It was all subjective, but Danny had great instincts. Five-0 had enlisted the help of several HPD detectives and officers, covering the blocks surrounding Danny’s place. Not only that, but this way they could keep an eye on the neighboring bars as well, where a proliferation of men would be on the streets at the same time. Easy targets.

They could only hope that right now someone else wasn’t being killed, in some other part of the city.

Kono was paired with Officer Meka Hanamoa, one of the few that had passed muster with Chin as far as having his cousin’s back. Hanamoa was smart, capable and, almost as important, had joined the department after Chin’s exit; he knew what had happened but wasn’t the type to hold a grudge for the sake of it. He was unbiased and he’d keep Kono as safe as she’d keep him. Kono and Hanamoa had ears only, so had been maintaining surveillance on the comings and goings like the other detectives stationed in the vicinity. Everyone had photos of Farber and Danny both. 

“I haven’t seen him,” Danny muttered under his breath, sounding worn out and frustrated. He was entering the corridor where the cameras were filtered for privacy. “You guys got anything?”

Chin shook his head. No one had reported sighting Farber, and that was something Steve should have been keeping tabs on himself. He was distracted.

“Negative,” Steve said. “But the night’s not over until you’re safe at home.”

Danny grumbled something nearly unintelligible but which sounded like “Neanderthal” to Steve. He had to smile at that as he watched Danny poke his head and shoulders into the back room to clear out anyone finishing their … activities. The curve of Danny’s back and the swell of his ass was evident even with the lens distortion. 

“Sorry, fellas, we’re closing in five,” Danny said, then withdrew from the room. He looked at the camera, his face blurry. “Look, I can have one of the guys stick around. I can even have one of them escort me home, if it’ll make you feel better. You don’t have to wait on me. Go home, get some sleep.”

“That isn’t how this works, Danny.” 

“Fine, fine.”

Three guys came out of the back room. Danny followed them and helped his staff ensure everyone was out of the building – the crowd had departed quickly, knowing there was safety in numbers. The doors were secured and Danny turned to his employees. He must have turned his mic off, but Steve saw him gesturing and talking. It lasted for a good few minutes, some of the employees looking distraught by the end. After the conversation finished, the bouncers and bartenders all began heading out together. It wasn’t difficult to presume Danny had ordered them to leave in a group for safety, much like his patrons had. 

Steve would bet that even if he didn’t have Five-0 waiting around for him, he’d have done the same and left himself unguarded. Had probably done the same those few nights between when he’d uncovered the serial killer and when Steve had roped him into contract detective work. His heart twisted. If he’d had any doubt, it was gone. Danny _was_ the something he’d been looking for, and there was no turning from him. Danny was a good guy and he was more than worth the risk of recrimination or rejection.

“I know you guys are tired,” Danny said, mic back on. “I’m just going to toss the registers into the office safe and call it a night so everyone can rest.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Chin said. “Keep the mic on, huh?”

“Sorry, I was letting everyone know where the ceremony for Rex is tomorrow and didn’t think their responses needed to be public record.” Danny efficiently pulled the tills from the register by the door as well as the bar ones and then headed to his office. “Won’t happen again. Besides, I don’t want to miss out on this scintillating conversation.”

“Ooh, a smartass. Boss, are you sure we can’t keep him?” Kono chimed in. 

Three days ago, Steve would have said not just no, but hell no. Tonight, he thought the idea had merit. To have Danny there with them every day, snarking and grousing and being damned good at his job sounded like a terrific plan. He slid a look over at Chin, who grinned at him with affection, but then frowned as he looked back at the monitors he was in the process of severing links with.

“That’s weird. The camera in Danny’s office is malfunctioning.”

Call it Spidey Sense, call it intuition, Steve just _knew_. He leaned toward the monitors, as if he could jump through them.

“Danny, don’t go…”

It was too late. Danny disappeared into his office and Steve lost the visual. For a moment or two, all he heard was the scrape of metal. Danny putting the cash drawers on his desk, possibly. Then the mic transmitted the distinct and unforgettable resonant thump that only came with a hard blow to the head, followed by the sound of at least one of the tills hitting the floor, coins rolling and spinning. Shit. Shit.

“Shit,” Steve said, breaking for the door of the van. “Danny? Danny!”

The only answer he got was a faint moan and another sickening thump. Steve vaguely heard Chin ordering Kono and Hanamoa in, as well as calling in the back up and an ambulance. The van was parked a solid two blocks away from the _Hole_ , and it seemed farther as he ran. He tore down the street like a madman, heard Chin pounding after him. 

“You think I didn’t know who you were?” Farber said. “You own this place and run it like what everyone does here is _all right_? I knew the second you booked the appointment with me.”

“You killed Rex,” Danny said sluggishly, as if his tongue was too big for his mouth. “You killed all of them, didn’t you, you sick bastard?”

Blindsided and injured, Danny was still doing the job.

“Can’t get in, door opens outward. Don’t want to shoot it.” Kono’s voice broke quietly through the mics. “Might alert Farber, scare him into killing Danny. Coming around front.”

“Yes, I killed them. They were like you. They weren’t right.” Farber’s voice was winded, but still held a trace of lunacy. “They needed to know, so I showed them like I’m going to show you. You can’t go around acting like you’re normal. You’re not. It’s not…you…I…”

More rustling, flesh against flesh, pained grunts and muffled curses fed into Steve’s ear and he ran harder. He spared a glance to Chin, who seemed to read his mind and nodded that he’d kept the recording equipment on.

“Almost there, Danny,” Steve said, hoping Danny’s earpiece hadn’t been knocked loose. “We got him.”

Someone let out a pained chuckle, Danny or Farber. Danny.

“I enjoy being the one to tell you that you fucked this up big time.” Danny was wheezing now, the disadvantage of being hit on the head twice clearly impacting his ability to fight. But he was still going. “Also, you need a shrink.”

Had his heart not been in his throat as he ran, Steve might have laughed at Danny’s stalling technique. He was relieved to hear Danny was able to speak – Max had posited that the first blow had likely incapacitated all the other victims, thus no defensive wounds. He reached the club’s door and practically threw himself at it until Chin caught up and pushed him aside to kick it open. It took precious seconds and the noise of it drowned out what might be happening to Danny.

Steve raced through the club, now with Chin, Kono and Hanamoa right behind him and the wail of sirens loud outside, to Danny’s office. The door was open, and he could hear in stereo the fight going on inside. He burst into the room, to see Farber had wrapped his hands around Danny’s neck. The man’s face was red with fury and streaked with blood. Pride that Danny had given his all would come later. For now, Steve had his own rage issues to contend with, because Danny had _more_ blood streaming down his face.

He and Chin tackled Farber at the same time, wrestling him way from Danny. Farber fought them hard, as if he didn’t realize he was caught. An extra punch or two was needed to subdue him adequately enough to cuff him, absolutely. Steve might have kept going, had Chin not pushed him toward Danny. Breathing harshly, he looked at Danny sprawled gracelessly on the floor, cash and papers scattered all around him, his head raised to watch through his right eye. The left was already swelling shut. He was the most amazing thing Steve had ever seen. The room was buzzing with activity and people, but Danny was all Steve saw.

“Got you, asshole,” Danny said, slurring and breathing even more heavily than Steve. He shifted his gaze to Steve and let his head fall to the floor. He made a vague pointing gesture. “And it took you long enough to get here.”

Danny had no idea how true that was. Steve sank to his knees next to Danny and smiled at him.

H50H50

The ceremony had been touching, if wetter than Danny was used to for a funeral. He paddled slowly to shore amid all of Rex’s friends, family and the guys from the _Hole_ , feeling a part of them and apart from them at the same time. Rex’s mother had hugged Danny fiercely before they’d headed out on their boards, told him how much Rex had loved him and it had nearly gutted him. Now that it was all over and the son of a bitch who’d killed Rex so horribly, he had time to simply think about Rex as a person rather than as the symbol of retribution. Glancing at the mass of people around him, he wasn’t surprised how Rex had touched so many people’s lives. He’d move on much easier than Rex’s family, of course, but the thought of never having that gorgeous, vivacious man behind the bar again, flirting guys out of hundreds of dollars, was a painful one.

Spurred by his thoughts, he stroked too fast and it made his head throb, so he stopped for a moment and let the surf guide him in. His injuries were minor and absolutely worth it, but his whole body still ached from the fight with Farber last night. His left eye had settled into a deep bruise, the swelling not too bad. Danny wanted nothing more than to go home and lie down for a while, think about nothing, but he knew he wouldn’t do that. Having found justice for Rex and the twelve other men killed left him wide open to think about Michael taking away his little girl, and how he had no clue how to stop it. He also couldn’t stop thinking about Steve. Confused, wounded but repairable Steve. 

Who was standing on the beach right now, with Kono and Chin at his side. 

That telltale feeling in the pit of his stomach came back full force. Danny realized all of a sudden that this could be it. As much as he wanted to work on whittling away at Steve’s layers, this could be the last time he interacted with him, with Five-0, despite his intentions to not give up on Steve’s messed up head. He took several cleansing breaths, a method he’d taken up to maintain his sanity while going to fake therapy sessions with that murdering SOB. Danny slid off his rented surfboard when the water was waist deep and trudged slowly the few steps to shore with it tucked under his arm. He squinted at the team he’d felt a part of for too short a time to feel like he’d miss them almost as much as he missed Rex. 

“Hey,” Danny said. 

“Hi, Danny,” Chin said. “We came to pay our respects, but we didn’t want to intrude.”

Though wet and shirtless, Danny hugged Chin, then Kono, whispering his thanks in their ears as he did so. Kono gave him a wobbly smile, her eyes focused on his bruises, then she and Chin wandered toward the small group Danny gestured to, where Rex’s parents were.

“You didn’t have to come.” Danny shielded the sun from his eyes to peer up at Steve. They’d spent most of the last four days not seeing each other directly, which he’d thought was what Steve wanted. Until he saw the plain relief on Steve’s face last night, as he hovered while Danny got checked for injuries, and then he started to wonder. Now he saw something else on Steve’s face that made the wondering take a firmer shape in his mind. “You didn’t know him.”

“He was important to you,” Steve said softly, a half smile on his face. “And Kono wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Oh, Kono wanted. Okay, he could ignore the way Steve’s attention landed and stayed on the faint fingerprint bruises around his neck, then moved down to the boot shaped bruise on his ribs. He let Steve off without comment, but he sensed a change in the other man. He didn’t want to get his hopes raised for it, didn’t expect it would be so easy. He didn’t have a lot of luck with hope fulfillment. Danny nodded absently, flicking his attention to Chin and Kono at Emma Akana’s side. 

“Thank you,” he murmured again, bumping his shoulder against Steve’s arm as they started walking to the others. Danny was happy when Steve didn’t tense up or withdraw. “For putting Farber away.”

“You had everything to do with that,” Steve said. He paused and glanced at Danny, awkward. “You know, you really meshed well with the team. Would you ever consider joining us permanently?”

Danny stopped in his tracks, trying to gauge if that was a joke; Steve had barely looked at him since he’d mauled the guy in the bathroom at the _Ali’iolani Hale_. By the earnest expression being aimed at him, it wasn’t. Somehow Steve managed to throw him curveballs. He’d come to appreciate running the _Hole_ , he truly had, but he also knew that at his core he was a cop. The opportunity was nothing to sneeze at, but he thought about Michael and Grace and he had zero shot at keeping Grace at all if he gave up a successful business to join what was well known on the islands to be a high danger, explosions-first-questions-later task force. He shook his head, even as his heart pounded at the possibility of Five-0. Of _Steve_. He needed Grace more than anything.

“I have the bar.” It sounded halfhearted even in his own ears. “I have responsibilities there.”

“You could keep it. Hire a manager to run it for you.” Steve shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him, but the brightness in his eyes belied that. “My sister Mary might be great at it, actually. She’s as unconventional as your place is. I think you’d like her.”

“Huh,” Danny said.

He and Steve drew up next to Chin, Kono and the gathering of Rex’s friends. Chin eyed him carefully but wordlessly. Danny gave him a tight smile and tried not to react to the way Steve was also watching him. He made his excuses after a few minutes, citing exhaustion and headache, neither a lie. Now his thoughts were more muddled by a job offer he was sure was real. He tugged his T-shirt back on and drove home, too much in his head to sift through it. He’d barely started to deal with the emotional drain of the funeral, if he were going to be honest, and he wanted numbness. 

Once home, he headed for the shower, stripping his clothes as he moved through his apartment. He stood under the hot spray, hands braced against the tile wall and head hanging low as the water pounded against the back of his skull. In the small, steamy space of the shower, nothing mattered. He gave himself a perfunctory wash, muscles lax and lazy from the heat, and he felt better. The shower definitely also made him sleepy, what he’d wanted. He shut off the water only when it started going tepid.

Toweling off, he wiped the mirror free of fog and eyed his bruises and cuts. He looked like hell, outsides matching his insides. He padded to the bedroom and tugged on a fresh pair of boardies and a favorite well-worn T-shirt, then headed, still barefoot, to the kitchen. He retrieved a beer from the fridge, and move to the sofa. He leaned his head against the back and stared at the ceiling. He recognized his lethargy as a post-case letdown mingled with grief over Rex and Grace, anger at Michael and that minuscule possibility of something _good_ with Steve and his team. He set the beer on the small coffee table, and stretched out. Almost immediately, he drifted into semi-sleep.

He woke up to the strains of Radiohead blaring out of his cell phone. Thrashing around a bit called to the forefront how sleep had re-stiffened his sore muscles. Danny groaned to himself as he stumbled around to find the phone before it could go to voicemail. Truthfully, Michael was the last person he wanted to talk to, but it had been days since he’d threatened to take Grace and the proposed custody changes had been delivered to his door, all official and damning. Michael had stopped taking his calls and his numerous desperate voicemails went unanswered.

“Michael, before you say anything, I need you to listen to me,” Danny said into the phone, not even attempting a fake-pleasant greeting. His tongue felt as cottony as his just-woken brain. “That girl is my world, you know that. You cannot be so cruel you’d take her from me. Please, plea…”

“What did you _do_?” Michael hissed, interrupting him with rudeness he often accused Danny of. “Do you know who just left my home, Daniel?”

Danny was confused by the questions, if he were going to be honest.

“What?”

“It was a low blow, but I have no choice now, if Stan wants to continue to get work.” Michael sounded the kind of mad he always did when he’d been outplayed and outclassed, and Danny knew for certain it hadn’t been by _him_. “That being the case, I will not be petitioning to change our custody arrangements. In fact, I’ve been persuaded to let you see Gracie two nights a week.”

“What?” Danny asked again, feeling like he’d woken up to a conversation already half over. He couldn’t wrap his brain around anything Michael was saying. There’d been too much thrown at him in too short a span of time lately, just in general, not taking into consideration how Michael’s voice always sent him into a tailspin anyway. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll call you to make a schedule when I’ve calmed down, because even though I am agreeing to this, I want to wring your neck right now,” Michael said. “Governor Jameson herself, Danny. Really.”

Before Danny could ask what again, the phone went silent. He pulled it away from his ear and stared at the blank face of it, his reflection on the shiny screen the very picture of befuddlement, face puffy from bruises and heavy sleep, hair wild. He shook the phone like maybe it could give him some answers. Eventually, his brain kicked in. He dropped the phone as he sifted out Michael’s anger and Governor Jameson’s apparent involvement. 

The heart of Michael’s tirade sank in and Danny pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t. Grace. He wasn’t losing Grace. Frantically, he fished around a pile of opened and unopened mail to find the dreaded custody papers. He ripped them into small pieces. He didn’t know how, but Gracie was staying in his life. He laughed softly to himself, and didn’t even care if his windows were wide open and his neighbors could hear him losing it.

It took a few minutes to get himself back under control. When he did, all the pieces clicked into place. There weren’t many people he knew who had the governor’s ear, the list so narrow it consisted of exactly three people, two of whom probably didn’t have direct contact so much as tangential due to the job. Danny’s heart was going a million beats a minute, he swore, at the magnitude of this gift and the possibilities that came with it. He didn’t think about it, just dashed around looking for a pair of flip-flops. He ran his hand through his unkempt hair, grabbed his phone to Google a certain someone’s address and the directions to get there. 

He wasn’t five minutes into the drive when his phone rang again – some horrible tween music star or something that Grace had picked out herself. Danny grinned, never so glad to hear such a horrible, horrible excuse for music.

“Hey, sweet pea,” Danny said.

“Danno, Danno,” Grace said. “Guess what? Daddy said I get to come stay with you _two_ nights every week now, did you know that?” 

Gracie’s joy was the icing on the cake. Danny had thought he’d never get to have his little girl again. He pulled off to the side of the street as soon as he saw the chance, eyes filled with happy tears. 

“I just heard.” Typical of Michael to announce it to Grace when they hadn’t hashed out any details, to steal Danny’s thunder. “That’s great news, huh? I’m excited, are you excited?”

“YES! You play the best with Dolphin Trainer Annie and make the yummiest pancakes in the whole world,” Grace said, her voice bubbly. “And now I get two nights instead of one and it’s gonna be so fun.”

Danny rested his head on the steering wheel as he let his girl’s voice wash over him. He made sure to say “uh huh” and “sure” where appropriate, but the words she was saying were less important than the fact he was not going to miss out on this, ever. After a minute, Grace got distracted, as five-year-olds tended to do easily, and the call ended with their traditional “I love you more”s. He stayed hunched over for a minute or two, trying to collect himself again, before he got back on the road. The call from his baby girl solidified how much he had to thank Steve. He drove like he was on the New Jersey Turnpike the rest of the way to Steve’s house, and practically screeched to a halt on Piikoi Street. 

He trotted up the sidewalk to Steve’s front door and knocked loudly, paused for a response, then knocked some more, using the butt of his hand. Danny felt stupid when no answer came. He didn’t even know if Steve was home. He was probably at work. It was a weekday. He turned to leave, then the door pulled open to reveal Steve with a wary look on his face.

“Danny, what…?”

Danny didn’t wait for an invitation. He brushed by Steve into the cool interior of the house, dim compared to the bright sun outside. He blinked a few times to help his eyes adjust and paced as Steve shut the door, staring at him with cautious inquisitiveness. 

“You did something. What did you do?” Danny demanded, and realized he sounded pissed off by the way Steve’s wariness only increased. He ran a hand through his unruly hair, suddenly mortified at how ridiculous he must look. He continued on, more calmly but with a hint of shakiness in his voice he couldn’t seem to prevent. “I just got a call from my ex, Michael.”

“Oh,” Steve said and blushed (blushed!). “That was nothing.”

God, Danny was in trouble. He couldn’t articulate with _that_ standing in front of him. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, mentally said fuck it and stepped into Steve’s personal space.

“Please don’t punch me,” he said, before he put both hands to the sides of Steve’s face, drew him down and kissed him gently. He ended the kiss quickly, murmuring into Steve’s lips, “Thank you.”

He wrapped his arms around Steve’s back and held on. He just needed to transmit how grateful he was, nothing more (yet) and nothing less. After a few seconds Steve pulled him closer and returned the hug. A few seconds after that, he swore Steve kissed the top of his head. He couldn’t be quite sure of that, though Steve did rest his chin there.

“You didn’t deserve him trying to do that to you,” Steve said. “I didn’t overstep?”

“Oh, no. You, my friend, completely and totally overstepped. Don’t get me wrong, it was very, very inappropriate.” Danny eased out of Steve’s arms, self-conscious and slightly nervous. He knew Steve was not, he wasn’t… He smiled. “I only wish I’d been there to see the smug wiped off of Michael’s face. I don’t suppose you sent Governor Jameson in with a hidden camera?”

The transformation of Steve’s face was something he’d never get tired of. He wanted to see it many, many times, the way Steve went from confused to concerned to relieved to so amused he tossed his head back a little and laughed. It was stunning, truly, as was the newfound relaxation he saw in Steve’s stance. After he’d stupidly kissed the guy when he was clearly not ready for it, the first time, he’d almost thought that he’d made Steve’s issues worse. Standing there now and watching Steve laugh with complete ease, it was almost like a different person. The fondness Danny felt for this man seemed too deeply rooted to be for someone he barely knew. 

The last thing he expected was for Steve to catch him staring, his laughter fading and in its place came grim determination. It was Steve who approached him this time, yanking him close and kissing him clumsily, like he was trying to prove something. It hearkened back to their first kiss, only less with the anger and more with a strange uncertainty. It was over too fast to get a real feel for it, as Steve made a sound at the back of his throat and tore away. He was gasping like he couldn’t catch a full breath.

“Hey,” Danny said after a beat. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. I … Danny, I … I’m confused.” Steve ran a hand over his face, the inner turmoil so, so obvious. He all but collapsed onto the arm of the large leather sofa placed next to the door. “I don’t know what it is about you.”

Danny couldn’t help it. He approached Steve carefully, stood close between his legs. 

“Whatever happens, you don’t have to hide anything.” Danny shrugged. “Not from me, okay? From anyone else, that’s your business, no judgments from me, but you can always tell me anything.”

“Last night, when I though Farber was going to …” Steve trailed his fingers against the bruise on Danny’s face, then his neck. “…And how he _was_ … I don’t want to be him,” Steve said. He bent forward, rested his forehead against Danny’s chest. “But this isn’t … it’s just that this isn’t who I’m supposed to be, either.”

“Oh, babe.” Danny cupped a hand at the nape of Steve’s neck. Whatever physical aches and pains he had from fighting an unhinged serial killer seemed like nothing compared to this. “If who you’re ‘supposed to be’ isn’t who you actually are, then it’s not who you’re supposed to be.”

Steve’s reaction was again not the expected one. He jerked into motion, his hands all over Danny, tugging at the waistband of his shorts and the bottom of his T-shirt at the same time. As much as Danny wanted this man, now was not the time or the place. He stilled Steve’s hands with his own and took half a step back.

“Not yet,” Danny said softly.

“Danny, I want…”

“Me too. Believe me, in a normal situation, you and I would be naked and sweaty by now.” Danny kept his hold on Steve’s hands as he gestured to his hard dick. “But this isn’t a normal situation. And as the song says – you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes… So let’s try to get what we _need_.”

Steve winced and his eyes widened, making him look years younger somehow. Danny didn’t know what that was about, but it set his heart going. He squeezed Steve’s fingers.

“Also, to be perfectly frank, we’ve both got issues on top of issues and if we’re doing this, you should know that I don’t do short term. This isn’t a quick fuck to me. Is it to you?”

“No…” Steve swallowed a few times. “Don’t think so.”

“Then we go slowly, or we don’t go at all. I do not want one of us to have an oh-shit freakout moment again. We have time.”

“Yeah?” Steve said, his countenance transitioning into nervous energy and hopefulness now. “That mean you’re joining Five-0?”

Danny laughed and shook his head, but he had a sneaking suspicion his resolve on that front would degrade fast. 

“That means this is a small place and I’ve just come to realize that this island time I keep hearing about, in certain, very specific situations such as this, isn’t the most annoying thing in the world,” Danny said. “It might even be a good thing. We’ll get there eventually, and I’m betting it’s going to be worth whatever time it takes.”

Steve’s smile was so brilliant, Danny couldn’t help but lean in to kiss him. Steve opened his mouth after only a moment’s hesitation. He let Danny in, and this time the kiss, free of most of the anger and fear and uncertainty that had fueled their prior attempts, was slow and sweet and about as perfect as a kiss could get, as far as Danny was concerned. His brain slowed into that hazy, remarkable feeling of chemistry and rightness, and yes. 

Yes, Danny was certain being here, like this, was what both of them needed.


End file.
